By Sarah Sluis
Oscar nominations were announced yesterday, giving the non-film-obsessed a month to head to their
local theatres and squeeze in a film or two to make the whole Oscar broadcast more entertaining. Studios, of course, try to predict what films will receive nominations, and expand or resurrect the films accordingly.
Since expansions must be planned weeks in advance, it's easy to tell what films met (and failed) a studio's expectations. Revolutionary Road, which expands to 1,058 screens, is the big loser here, earning only one major nomination: Supporting Actor for Michael Shannon as a mentally ill mathematician (hey, it worked for Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind), and two minor nods for art direction and costume design, a gimme for any period film. Turns out just like April and Frank Wheeler, Revolutionary Road thought it was more special than it really was.
Universal also planned a big post-Oscar expansion for Frost/Nixon, which will release on 1,097 screens, and up until now has done pretty light business. Fox Searchlight is expanding The Wrestler (566 screens) and Slumdog Millionaire (1,411 screens). Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei both received nominations for The Wrestler, making this film well-worth its expansion. Searchlight has done a controlled, slow rollout of Slumdog (and earlier actually had to scale up their planned expansion to meet demand), so this expansion caps an extremely well-executed release.
October's Rachel Getting Married, which Sony Pictures Classics hoped would receive a Best Actress nomination for Anne Hathaway (it did!), will show up on 345 screens, although without an accompanying nomination for screenwriter Jenny Lumet. The Dark Knight will also appear on 350 screens, giving audiences one more chance to see Supporting Actor nominee Heath Ledger in IMAX. The most nominated film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, will continue its wide release but will likely see a significant boost in business.
For those with an elementary school child in tow and a brain ready to mentally prepare grocery lists, take your child to see Inkheart (2,655 screens). It's muddled, confusing, poorly executed, but, at the very
least, will inspire you to imagine all the ways this film could have been so much better. Fans of horror film Underworld can rejoice in sequel Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2,942 screens). Just a guess, but those that don't know exactly what "Rise of the Lycans" means should probably stay away, and catch one of those films the Academy has deemed likely-to-be-the-best.
Other films playing on just a few screens this weekend include a worn Jack the Ripper/Hitchcock remake The Lodger, horror-movie-on-a-boat Donkey Punch, and Terence Davies' documentary Of Time and the City.
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