Does Box Office Matter to Best Actress Hopefuls?
Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 12:18PM by Nathaniel R
Helen Mirren's The Queen was in many ways a completely standard win... a solid success before the nomination and an even bigger hit afterwardsDoes Box Office matter to Oscars? It does and it doesn't. And how much it matters varies from year to year and from category to category. It obviously matters, regardless, if you're either a flop or a big hit but anything inbetween (where most movies fall) is up for speculative debate.
For instance, just this year people have debated whether The Wife's box office take is strong enough for a Best Actress nomination for Glenn Glose (hint: it totally is... though winning will be harder) and whether it will matter that Roma won't really have that much of a theatrical presence (it might. it might not. The streaming only/mostly thing is relatively uncharted territory) or if the major success of A Star is Born will make a win possible for Lady Gaga (it won't hurt!)
For fun let's look at how much the Best Actress nominees films made before they were nominated for the past fifteen years and see what patterns emerge. The films in red won Best Actress Oscars.
BOX OFFICE RANK OF BEST ACTRESS FILMS
BEFORE THE NOMINATIONS (2003-2017)
AND WHERE THIS YEAR'S LEADING ACTRESSES CURRENTLY FIT...
