Royal seal of approval ... The King's Speech has enjoyed a box office boost since it received 12 Oscar nominations
By the middle of last week the online ticket seller Fandango declared The King's Speech to be its biggest attraction. The period drama jumped 76% in popularity with customers in the 24 hours after the Academy Award nominations were announced. The King's Speech bagged 12 of them and as a bona fide contender its box office is about to surge.
The impact of Oscar nominations on a movie's commercial life is a big deal. Hollywood estimates as much as one quarter of a film's overall take can come from that period between the Oscar nominations and the awards ceremony some four weeks later, in this case 27 February. To be effective the rule considers movies that are in release, the more recently the better, and discounts those that have begun their home entertainment roll-out.
Of course, it's not a hard and fast rule and its logic is impeachable: maybe everybody who wants to see a movie has already seen it by the time the nominees are unveiled. But in most cases there are untapped audiences out there and the studio knows this so it will either keep a movie in theatres for longer, expand the number of theatres or re-release the movie. The theatre owners are happy because they've got customers lining up to see an Academy Award nominee. And buying more popcorn. Which is good because concession sales are the lifeblood of cinema operations.
A studio distribution executive once told me that it is during this time that the "collectors" emerge, which sounds sinister but bear with me. These audiences tend to stay away from the multiplex fare but are happy to make time for the prestige releases. They're completists, so chances are they will see as many if not all of the nominees as possible.
The awards contenders in the current top 10 are doing well as it is. The King's Speech – which last night earned Colin Firth and the ensemble two awards at the Screen Actors Guild awards – has grossed $72.2m (£45.4m) after 10 weekends, while Black Swan and The Fighter stand at $90.7m after nine and $78.4m after eight. True Grit is the surprise box office package and has amassed $148.4m after six weekends.
Source:
No comments:
Post a Comment