Award Central News

In a year when the five best picture nominees combined grossed only about $200 million domestically, and four of them can be called hits only compared with their low budgets, some argue there's a profound disconnect between what appeals to the industry vs. the public at large.

Unlike in past years, when Oscar winners including "Million Dollar Baby," "Chicago" and "A Beautiful Mind" overcame their serious pedigree to gross more than $100 million, all of this year's nominees are slowing down well short of that breakout mark.

But it's not just the best picture nominees. Across the board, 2005 was a brutal year for all but a handful of prestige movies.

Whether ultimately praised by Oscar voters or not, pics from respected helmers including Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Curtis Hanson, Rob Marshall, Ridley Scott, Lasse Hallstrom, Cameron Crowe, Sam Mendes, Niki Caro, Roman Polanski and Terrence Malick all underperformed in American theaters.

Of course, every failure has its own sad story, and in each case there's a specific reason -- from reviews to release date to marketing -- why a movie didn't do as well as expected.

But there's a bigger problem that exacerbated the failures and tempered the successes.

At the high end, just as with movies designed to appeal to the masses, one thing was clear in 2005: There were simply too many of them.

"With a marketplace that's this crowded, it's a challenge to find any good place to put a movie," observes New Line domestic distribution president David Tuckerman.

That was especially true in the ultra-packed holiday season, when prestige pics in search of Oscar approval seemed to literally pile onto one another, mixed in with the requisite dose of family fare.

Indeed, the last few frames of the year brought more than a dozen pics that were relying primarily on awards attention to push them out of the crowd with hopes of grossing more than even $20 million.

The only one that did so -- "Brokeback Mountain" -- accomplished the task by seemingly dominating the nation's cultural discussion in newspapers, magazines and blogs.

"If you happen to have the right film at the right time, it's like a vacuum cleaner, but that's not something you can plan for," notes Focus distribution chief Jack Foley.

As Foley explains, "Brokeback" successfully "played under" a number of other films, slowly expanding as prestige movies that quickly went wide came and went with varying degrees of success, such as "Memoirs of a Geisha," "King Kong" and "Syriana."

"Capote" and "Good Night, and Good Luck" also have "played under" the competition, racking up decent figures in four-month-plus runs leading up to the Oscar nominations. Despite being two of the best picture contenders, though, both films garnered relatively paltry grosses when they went wide the weekend after the nominations, taking in just $2.3 million and $1.5 million respectively.

But "playing under" has its faults. Most movies that adopt that strategy never build the kind of buzz needed to prevent them from simply staying buried.

Some, like "The New World" or "Casanova," prove tepid when they expand beyond platform runs.

Others, like "Mrs. Henderson Presents" or even the moderately successful "Match Point," never get enough momentum to go wide at all.

Of course, there's no denying it's still really hard to get the attention of Oscar voters when a film comes out before the holidays.

"Crash" is the only movie released before the fall to land more than a single major Oscar nomination, aided by Lionsgate's aggressive campaign what mailed screeners out to the entire SAG membership.

In that sense, studios are caught in a Catch-22. Release a serious movie too early and it may not get the Oscar attention that could prove a boon to its bottom line. Release it too late and it could get so buried that audiences will never find it, whether nominated or not.

The opposite strategy -- going wide quickly or right away with a prestige pic -- worked only for those films that benefited from a combination of solid reviews and a perfectly timed release date, when the market was devoid of serious films but not dominated by big-budget tentpoles.

While many industryites questioned Lionsgate's strategy of opening "Crash" wide in early May, the release found a perfect niche against disappointing big-budget release "Kingdom of Heaven."

Similarly, "The Constant Gardener" opened a surprising No. 3 over Labor Day weekend, when the only other films bowing were B-level, late-summer fare like "The Transporter 2."

Meanwhile, both "Cinderella Man" and "Munich" drew positive reviews but ended up with mediocre grosses when released in the highly competitive early-June and late-December timeframes.

Of course, success is relative. Those two "flops" grossed more than "Gardener" and about as much as "Crash." But they both cost substantially more and needed grosses approaching $100 million to become financial successes.

Turning a serious drama into a breakout hit is a rarity in any year, especially one as crowded as 2005 (and, it appears, 2006). If last year proved anything, it's that there are all sorts of slots and strategies to turn a somber Oscar contender into a hit -- if the price is right.