Visual Category Madness... and Guild Nominees for Makeup/VES

This just in. Here's a quick Oscar chart update on all the Visual categories... (You can see the index of Oscar Predictions here - we're almost finished -- but of course everything gets taken down and rebuilt tomorrow - whew). I have worked through the sadness as I removed predictions for Carol in no brainer should be easy get categories like Production Design (seriously sometimes Hollywood make-a-me-crazy). The one I left in that I'm very worried about is Cinematography. It's one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. Watch them replace it with something basic like The Hateful Eight or The Martian (sigh). 

MEANWHILE... The Makeup and Hairstylists Guilds and the The Visual Effects Society, which have much larger voting bodies than their correlatives within the Academy released their nominations so we'll share those after the jump if you're interested with a few comments on each...

Click to read more ...

Box Office: Bollywood Hoopla

Amir here, with the weekend’s box office report. As predicted last week, the top two films didn’t change at the high end of the pile. Spectre is doing impressive enough business in the US, but its record-breaking haul in China was the real gain. The total worldwide gross of the film surpassed the half billion-dollar mark. There were four new wide releases, three of which landed in the top ten and, embarrassingly, I hadn’t heard of a single one of them before sitting down for this column, so let’s give each a crack.

Love the Coopers, is a family Christmas comedy, and because all mentions of Christmas in November should be banned, we’ll skip over it—it was right behind The Peanuts Movie in third place. The 33, the Antonio Banderas-led film about Chilean miners did as well as a film about such a dark—literally and figuratively—tragedy can do. The real story, however, is India’s Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. It’s an open secret that Bollywood films do really well without significant advertising, but this one is doing even better than usual. Already having the best opening of all time for a Bollywood film in India in the bag, where it opened on the 4-day Diwali weekend, Salman Khan and Sonam Kapoor’s newest venture has the best opening weekend for an Indian film in the UK and one of the top five best in the US.

The Weekend's Top 5
Spectre $35.4m (cum. $130.7m)
The Peanuts Movie $24.2m (cum. $82.4m)
Love the Coopers $8.4m (new)
The Martian $6.7m (cum. $207.4m)
The 33 $5.8m

On the limited side of things, Angelina Jolie’s By the Sea grossed a dismal $9k per screen—it’s a shame; this film looks gorgeous—and James White, one of the under the radar gems at this year’s TIFF fared slightly better, but it’s hard to gauge its success given it’s only playing on one screen.

What did you see this weekend? Are you excited to see Prem Ratan Dhan Payo?

Box Office: The Winner Is Bond... James Bond

Amir here, with the weekend’s box office numbers. The fourth Bond turn by the sexy but no longer enthusiastic Daniel Craig predictably ruled the weekend, scoring the franchise’s second highest opening weekend gross of all time. The highest number belongs to Skyfall, of course, and there was never any chance, with cooler reviews and less general excitement, that Spectre was going to break the series’ record. All things considered this is a great success for everyone involved.

Box Office Top 5
new Spectre $73m
new The Peanuts Movie $45m
The Martian $9.3m (cum. $197m)
Goosebumps $6.9m (cum. $66.4)
Bridge of Spies $6m (cum. $60)

The Peanuts Movie came second and, again, the numbers can be considered successful when one considers the younger generation’s emotional distance with these characters. Both Spectre and Peanuts have another week to spend at the top before their competitions arrive in the form of The Hunger Games and The Good Dinosaur.

New Limited Releases
Miss You Already $570k
Spotlight $300k
Brooklyn $181k
Trumbo $77k
Peggy Guggenheim Art Addict $22k
In Jackson Heights $15k
Theeb $7k

On the limited side of the releases, Oscar hopefuls Spotlight, Brooklyn and Trumbo all entered the fray. Spotlight has the weekend’s highest per theatre average, which certainly isn’t too shabby for a film many are already considering the frontrunner. Whether these numbers can translate to success when the film goes wide remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs continues its lacklustre run. Is it just too soon for people to be interested in a biopic about him?

What did you see this weekend?

The Oscar Eligibility List for Best Animated Feature

The 16 official submissions for the Best Animated Feature Oscar have been revealed. The finalists include expected high-profile entries like Pixar's Inside Out and the still-to-come festival darling Anomalisa, and some you are maybe hearing about for the first time. Here's the list:

• Anomalisa (US)
• The Boy And The Beast (Japan)
• Boy And The World (Brazil)
• The Good Dinosaur (US)
• Home (US)
• Hotel Transylvania 2 (US)
• Inside Out (US)
• Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet (Multinational)
• The Laws Of The Universe – Part 0 (Japan)
• Minions (US)
• Moomins On The Riviera (Finland)
• The Peanuts Movie (US)
• Regular Show: The Movie (US)
• Shaun The Sheep Movie (UK)
• The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water (US)
• When Marnie Was There (Japan)

After racking up Pixar's second highest domestic gross, Inside Out is the early frontrunner. Its potential is also boosted by its Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay prospects, and it has the blend of brains and heart that have lead Pixar to more wins in the category than any other studio. There is also The Good Dinosaur coming for Thanksgiving and hoping to celebrate Pixar's first dual release year with dual nominations.

Pixar isn't alone in bringing a high pedigree. Anomalisa stands to benefit from its uniqueness among the pack: already boasting the Academy-approved pedigree of Charlie Kaufman, it's also a rare entry intended squarely at adults. GKIDS, who have found favor in this category with lovely low profile films, have three eligible candidates, including Studio Ghibli's When Marnie Was There. Will Blue Sky's The Peanuts Movie register with nostalgic love or will it have similar poor luck to the other releases by the studio?

This category also has some tricky qualifications to note. The short version is that there could be five nominees (provided every single one of these meets release qualifications), but that depends on how well the nominating committee rates each film. If they think the field is weak, we could see less than five.