Oscars 2023 Best Picture Nominees’ Box Office Success

The Oscars are all set to return to the screens of everyone’s televisions on the 12th of March this year. Even though the Oscars are one of the most prestigious awards in Hollywood, the award show itself has become infamous over the past few years for multiple scandalous events, such as the wrongful announcement of La La Land as Best Picture instead of the intended Moonlight. As well as the whole drama with Will Smith and Chris Rock. 

High Grossing Blockbusters

However, this time around, the Oscars are all set to be unique for a whole different detail. It is well-known by many that critically acclaimed films are always at the very front of the line when it comes to Best Picture Nominees. This is usually regardless of how they’ve performed at the Box Office. However, this time around, the Oscars also recognize billion-dollar hits such as Top Gun: Maverick starring Tom Cruise, a film that grossed close to $1.5 billion globally last year.

Other Contenders

Another contender for Best Picture is unsurprisingly, Avatar: The Way Of Water. James Cameron’s brand new instalment in the Avatar series has grossed over a staggering $2 billion worldwide since its release, and it still continues to amaze moviegoers and critics alike. Usually, Box Office popularized films were not entirely equated to being equal to epic works of cinema appreciated by critics and audiences alike. A good example could be Avengers Endgame. The film grossed billions of Dollars worldwide but lacked the critical acclaim to be potentially nominated for Best Picture. This time, however, things are different.

Alongside Cameron and Cruise are films that were received well by many such as Elvis, the biopic about Elvis Presley starring Austin Butler that became a darling for America. Furthermore, there is also A24 Studio’s brand new nerve-wracking production, Everything Everywhere All At Once. Both of these films have managed to gross around $100 million worldwide since release and have the approval of many in the industry.

The Triangle Of Sadness and The Fabelmans lag further behind in the race in terms of box office success as both the films struggled to surpass $30 million worldwide in spite of being arguably some of the best films to come out in recent times. It hence becomes important to note that this time the Oscars are not all about brilliant little films with great critical acclaim. Often, movies that don’t make much noise in terms of returns take home the award.

Just ask James Cameron. His last Best Picture nomination was Avatar back in 2010, a film that grossed millions of dollars worldwide and became a symbol of CGI success and creativity like no other. However, the Best Picture award was given to The Hurt Locker, a war drama film that grossed a little over $15 million dollars domestically. Such events occurring at the Oscars are no surprise. However, this time around, since the emphasis is on both art house films as well as popular ones, the Best Picture winner may be surprising in a pleasant way.

In Ultimatum

The Oscars are all set to welcome big blockbusters of the previous year for Best Picture instead of just emphasizing on critically acclaimed films that may or may not have performed well financially. This could be a positive change. However, some suspect all of this is to draw in more attention from the audience, as Oscar viewership has been dropping steadily over the past few years. In fact, last year’s viewership was roughly around 15 million, the second lowest of all time in the Oscars history. Maybe, this year will be different.