Best Picture Oscar: How will box office play into this year’s race, if at all?

With 2022 behind us and the Oscars nominations just a few weeks away, it’s time to address an ongoing concern that’s come up a few times in recent months. It’s something that we can explore further now that James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” and Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” have been released, because oddly, they’re polar opposites when it comes to the topic: Will a movie’s success or failure at the box office have any sort of impact or effect on its chances to either get nominated or win Best Picture on Oscar night?

Before we get too deeply into this analysis, we probably should realize or remember that for the past two years, Best Picture was won by movies that were essentially released by streamers. To be fair, Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” may have gotten more of a theatrical release if not for COVID, but last year’s “CODA” was bought by Apple TV+ essentially for its online platform. While there are streamers who have movies in the Best Picture mix this year, it feels like theatrical releases from 2022 are much more in play this year than they were in the previous two years.

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And yet, there’s a definite and quite noticeable divide between the movies that were hugely successful in theaters and those that just didn’t get much attention or love in theaters. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the four sequels that were vying for Best Picture love, and three of those sequels are also the top-grossing movies of 2022. Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” and Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” have all grossed over $400 million domestically, putting them at the top of the heap with two of them being the sequels to big Oscar winners. 

You then get the next tier down, which includes A24’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Baz Lurhmann’s “Elvis,” two movies that were very well received, both among critics and audiences, and both did decently in theaters. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The Woman King” didn’t fare as well as other big historic epics, but it did make $67 million and was fairly well-received.

You then get to the next level, which includes a number of movies that have received a lot of attention on the festival circuit but not so much love from moviegoers with few of them even grossing $15 million.

Of those, Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” seems to be chugging along with just over $12 million, but that’s already been sent to VOD by Universal. Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin” only made $9 million in theaters, before going to HBO Max, which is more likely where it will be seen. Same goes for Universal’s “She Said,” the drama about the start of the #MeToo movement that took down Oscar’s most persistent campaigners, Harvey Weinstein, who will probably be spending the rest of his life in jail. Most recently, Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” bombed quite badly over the holidays, barely bringing in $11 million despite a very wide release by Paramount.

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While none of those four movies are about subject matters that scream out to be seen by casual moviegoers in theaters, they’ve all been in the awards conversation for months now. Other similar movies that have been more in the conversation for specific performances include Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” (for Brendan Fraser), Todd Field’s “TÁR” (for Cate Blanchett), as well as Till, which features an Oscar-worthy performance from Danielle Deadwyler. None of these did particularly well in theaters either, even if Field’s movie may get him nominated as a writer or director.

Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” is a special case, since it got an unprecedented one-week-only nationwide release by Netflix, and it reportedly made $13.5 million in that time, but it, too, was always planned for streaming.

There’s an long ongoing myth that a movie that does poorly in movie theaters doesn’t stand a chance – or at least has less of a chance – of getting a Best Picture nomination, but that might not be the case so much with ten guaranteed nominees. Even if all six of the movies that decently at the box office get nominated, there’s still four more slots open. 

On top of that, most academy voters have access to special screenings as well as to the academy’s digital platform, so they don’t necessarily need to see all or any of the movies they pick for Best Picture in theaters. Sure, it would be nice to think that those in the industry who have been admitted to the academy would try to see their colleagues’ work in the best way possible, but for some of the academy’s more recognizable members, going out to see movies with general audiences 

Concluding, it doesn’t necessarily feel like movies that have done particularly well theatrically last year have that much of an advance, although it’s also hard to deny movies like “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which have found such avid audiences during their theatrical runs because they’re such groundbreakers.

In theory, movies like “The Fabelmans” and “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “TÁR” could work just as well if watched on a digital platform, and there are enough Best Picture slots left open that it doesn’t feel like this year will just be about the biggest box office grossers.