Using ticket sales as the judge, the Academy Award nominations for 2012 don’t at all reflect the sentiment of movie goers. The Artist, for example, is on track to becoming the box office’s least-popular Best Picture winner of the last 30+ years.
Paying audiences are saying loud and clear they’re not into the silent movie thing, yet with 10 nominations, The Artist is positioned second only to Hugo, which garnered 11 nominations.
Other best picture contenders besides The Artist, include The Descendant, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life and War Horse.
Movie grosses in 2012 have been making a surprisingly strong comeback, however, none of the contenders for best picture had anything to do with that.
The highest grossing weekend achieved by any combination of those nominees amounted to a combined $26.7 million. Not only did Safe House surpass that amount last weekend alone, the action thriller took in, last weekend, more than The Artist did in the 13 weeks the film has been in theaters.
On the other hand, the 10 top-grossing films were barely recognized with Academy award nominations.
Kung Fu Panda 2 is nominated for best animated feature; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has nods for art direction, makeup and visual effects; while Transformers: Dark of the Moon is acknowledged for sound mixing and editing, and visual effects.
Here is the way movie goers voted for best picture with their wallets.
The top 10 Highest Grossing Films Of 2011:
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 , $1.3 billion worldwide ($381 million domestic)
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon , $1.1 billion worldwide ($352 million domestic)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides , $1 billion worldwide ($241 million domestic)
• The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 , $702 million worldwide ($281 million domestic)
• Kung Fu Panda 2 , $665 million worldwide ($165 million domestic)
• Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol , $654 million worldwide ($207 million domestic)
• Fast Five , $626 million worldwide ($209 million domestic)
• The Hangover Part II , $581 million worldwide ($254 million domestic)
• The Smurfs , $563 million worldwide ($142 million domestic)
• Cars 2 , $559 million worldwide ($191 million domestic)
Source: Box Office Mojo.
