“Avatar: The Way of Water,” with its continued blockbuster momentum, was the only film nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this past week to stand among the Top 10 highest-grossing films at the box office this weekend with a No. 1 total of $15.7 million.
Several other nominated films, most of which completed their theatrical runs and hit streaming months ago, received a theatrical re-release in an effort to capitalize on their newfound Academy Award contender status, but only a couple of them were able to even crack $1 million in weekend grosses.
Of all the non-“Avatar” movies back in theaters, the highest-grossing was A24’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which made just over $1 million from its re-release in 1,400 theaters. With 11 nominations and an A24 record box office total of $71 million domestically and $104 million worldwide, “EEAAO” stands in the middle ground between the wide release successes in the Best Picture field like “Avatar 2” and “Top Gun: Maverick” and the arthouse/prestige fare like “The Banshees of Inisherin” that have struggled to sell tickets compared to their pre-pandemic counterparts.
The other Oscar-nominated films that have been able to post similar numbers to “EEAAO” are still in the midst of their primary theatrical runs. This includes A24’s “The Whale,” which was not nominated for Best Picture but has received substantial arthouse attention for Brendan Fraser, who received a Best Actor nomination.
“The Whale” added 130 theaters to its screen count this weekend to bring it to 1,721 theaters and added $1 million this weekend, bringing its total to $14.9 million. The drama from Darren Aronofsky has outperformed some of the Best Picture nominees, including “Banshees of Inisherin” and Focus Features’ “Tár.”
United Artists’ “Women Talking” was also able to crack the $1 million mark in its sixth weekend in theaters, expanding its screen count to 707 with a per-theater average of $1,432. Its domestic cume stands at $2.3 million, as it will try to extend its legs in limited release as far as it can after being nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Beyond these films, box office grosses for Oscar contenders remained in the six digits. Universal’s “The Fabelmans,” which is now available for video-on-demand, has a domestic total of $16 million after adding $760,000 this weekend, roughly a fifth of the $81 million made by director Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” in 2018. “Banshees of Inisherin,” which is available to stream on HBO Max, added $353,000 to bring its domestic total to $9.8 million, also roughly a fifth of the $54.5 million total taken by director Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” took in 2017.
Prior to the pandemic, most Oscar films released in October and November could rely on small but steady turnout for several weeks between Oscar nomination day and the actual Oscars telecast, helping make them theatrically profitable. But with the shortening of the theatrical window thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, most audience interest generated by Oscar nominations has diverted towards home release, where films are becoming available faster after theatrical release than they were prior to 2020.
