Oscars 2013: Nominations vs. Box Office
by EG
The announcement this week of the 2013 Oscar nominations went pretty much according to the script, with the films that were most liked by critics raking in the most nominations, while the year's biggest box-office hits were largely ignored in the major categories.
"American Hustle" and "Gravity" were the most nominated films, each of them pulling in 10 nods, and "12 Years a Slave" was next with nine nominations. Of these films, "Gravity" was the most commercially successful; it was the seventh highest-grossing film of 2013. "American Hustle" was ranked 30th on the box-office list, and "12 Years a Slave" came in 77th.
Of the nine films that received Best Picture nominations, most were moderately popular at the box office, although "Philomena" barely made 2013's top 100, and "Nebraska" hasn't even gone into wide release yet.
The film that will probably benefit the most from its Best Picture nomination is Spike Jonze's "Her," which was mostly overlooked by audiences when it went into wide release last week. Presumably the nomination will spur more movie-goers to check it out.
"Frozen" and "Despicable Me 2," two of the year's biggest films, were nominated for Best Animated Feature, but so were "The Wind Rises" and "Ernest & Celestine," two films that most movie-goers have never heard of.
Jennifer Lawrence got a Best Supporting Actress for her role in "American Hustle," even though many more people saw her in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire."
No word yet on Robert Downey Jr's reaction to being overlooked for his work in "Iron Man 3."