'Guardians of the Galaxy' Made Over $100 Million More than Every 2015 Best Picture Oscar Nominee Combined

I know that Oscar nominees tend to be more niche and art house-y than huge summer tentpoles, but this is a bit much. This year's slate of Best Picture nominees is the lowest-grossing since the field was opened up to include a potential ten nominees in 2010. All combined, this year's eight recognized films (American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Selma and Whiplash) have earned a combine total of $203.1 million so far. Compare that to 2014's highest-grossing film, Guardians of the Galaxy, which has earned $333.1 million domestically. (And counting. Yes, Guardians, which came out in August, is still in 125 theatres across the country. God bless that talking raccoon.)

To be fair, American Sniper only expands to wide release this weekend, Selma and The Imitation Game are still trucking along in the top ten, and Boyhood, Birdman, Whiplash and The Theory of Everything have yet to leave theaters. Still, that $203.1 million is less than half the previous record, when the 2011 Best Picture nominees had earned $519 million by the time nominations came out. (That was the year the winner was a black-and-white silent French film, by the by. The Artist was a crowdpleaser, but it wasn't exactly a crowdpleaser with mainstream appeal.)

Does this mean the Oscars are out of touch with the general American audience their awards show is aimed at? (Don't tell me the Oscars are for highbrow cinephiles--they're not.) Maybe. I'm not saying the Academy should have nominated Guardians for Best Picture--or, God forbid, fifth-highest grossing film Transformers: Age of Extinction, though Paramount did try for it--but maybe a descent from the high horse when it comes to genre films, which the Academy displays a marked bias against, is in order.

Letting in films that wouldn't otherwise make the cut, like 2010 Best Picture nominee District 9, is the reason the field was expanded in the first place. Maybe remember that, instead of nominating endless biopics about white dudes.

(hat tip to Box Office Mojo)

'American Sniper' Takes Aim at American Moviegoers' Wallets

Riding high on a record-breaking limited run (it's the only live-action movie to hit a $140,000-plus per theatre average on multiple consecutive weekends) and six Oscar nominations (though, to paraphrase Mean Girls, none for director Clint Eastwood, byyyeeee!), American Sniper is poised to take out a trio of brand new movies when it expands from four screens to wide release this weekend.

Certainly, none of its competition has anywhere near American Sniper's buzz. First, there's The Wedding Ringer, costarring omnipresent actor Kevin Hart, whose 2014 comedy Ride Along currently holds the record for biggest January opening weekend with $41.5 million (though it's entirely possible that American Sniper could best it).

For the children, there's Paddington, which has been getting surprisingly (for this writer) good reviews considering the first look the Internet got at it generated a slew of comments about how creepily uncanny valley that bear is. Also, Nicole Kidman plays a sexy taxidermist. Tell me that you're not a little bit surprised at this movie's 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and its pair of BAFTA nominations, for Best British Film and Best Screenplay. Add in the holiday weekend and the relative lack of other film options for young children (the only holdovers in theatres are Annie and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, both of which will likely soon sink out of the top ten), and this Peruvian bear's adventures should do pretty well, at least by January standards.

Not getting such good reviews is Michael Mann's Blackhat, about a hacker (played by People's Sexiest Man Alive Chris Hemsworth) who must stop total world annihilation (dun dun DUNNNNN). It'll be lucky to get ten million dollars stateside, though given the overseas setting for much of its action and its international cast, it should do better in foreign markets (see: Transformers: Age of Extinction).

Foxcatcher expands from limited release this weekend, from 237 to 759 theatres. Its quintet of Oscar nominations should help it get to the $1 million mark. Among limited releases screening in New York and/or LA, we have the Bollywood Beauty and the Beast-esque I; Still Alice, which netted Julianne Moore an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a professor with early-onset Alzheimer's; Appropriate Behavior, from writer/director/actress Desiree Akhavan, being touted as "the next Lena Dunham"; and Human Capital, Italy's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar (though it wasn't nominated).

Surprises and Snubs From the 2015 Oscar Nominations

The 2015 Oscar nominations came out this morning, and as usual, there are a number of head-scratchers. You can head to The Hollywood Reporter for the complete list--long story short, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game and Boyhood cleaned up, and J.K. Simmons continues his all-but-inevitable path to Oscar victory with a Supporting Actor nomination for Whiplash.

For for now, let's concentrate on the oddities. The lack of Selma nominations is a big surprise--it got Best Picture and Best Song, but nothing for director Ava DuVernay, star David Oyelowo or writer Paul Webb. In fact, in a move that highlights Hollywood's diversity problem, the Academy selected an acting nomination pool that is 100% white for the first time since 1998.

Clint Eastwood also failed to get a directing nom, though American Sniper is included in the Best Picture field. For Bennett Miller and Foxcatcher, it's the opposite.

Another one that has certain people (myself included) screaming at the rafters is The Lego Movie's absence in the Best Animated Feature category, though it did snag a Best Song nom for "Everything is Awesome." Disney's Big Hero 6 and DreamWorks' Golden Globe-winner How to Train Your Dragon 2 were predictably nominated, with indies The Boxtrolls, The Tale of Princess Kayuga (by legendary animation outfit Studio Ghibli) and surprise nom Song of the Sea (read our interview with director Tomm Moore here) filling out the category.

Noted awards season Machiavelli Harvey Weinstein is probably yelling at coworkers, assistants and random passers-by because French actress  Marion Cotillard pulled out a surprise nom not for The Immigrant, which The Weinstein Company launched a last-minute awards campaign for after it started getting some attention from year-end critics awards, but the Dardennes brothers' Two Days, One Night.

Laura Dern surprisingly scored a nom for her solid--if not necessarily flashy in the way the Academy normally likes--work in Wild, while Robert Duvall picked up his sixth career nomination for The Judge. And the reigning queen of Oscar nominations, Meryl Streep, has another to add to her collection thanks to her turn as the Witch in Disney's Into the Woods (which only got two other noms, for Costume Design and Production Design). Her grand total is 19 nominations, three of which are wins. After being snubbed by the Golden Globes, Bradley Cooper was recognized for American Sniper.

Hopefuls Jennifer Anison (Cake), Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler), Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year) and Amy Adams, who just won an Golden Globe for her starring role in Tim Burton's Big Eyes (a grand total of zero nominations), were not so lucky.

Potentially controversial among the technical types will be Interstellar's nominations (two of five) for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. As a reminder, this is the sound mixing and editing that resulted in many people not being able to hear key lines of dialogue--intentionally so, according to director Christopher Nolan.

Roger Ebert documentary Life Itself didn't score a Best Documentary nomination. David Fincher's Gone Girl didn't get anything for Adapted Screenplay or Score, though Rosamund Pike was rightfully included in the Best Supporting Actress field. And perhaps most egregiously--nothing for Will Smith's stunning surprise cameo in Winter's Tale*. What were you thinking, Academy?

You can catch the Oscars when they air on ABC at 7pm EST on Sunday, February 22nd.

*please note that I am 100% joking.

David Cross' 'Hits' Will Be the First Film Released Pay-What-You-Want on BitTorrent and in Theatres

Matt Walsh stars in Hits.

Louis C.K. had great success back in 2011 offering a new comedy special online at a pay-what-you-want rate. It's now a matter of course, especially for indies, to pair a theatrical release with VOD. Now comedian David Cross is combining both those concepts for a first-of-its-kind release plan.

 On February 13, Cross' directorial debut Hits, about the offbeat inhabitants of an upstate New York town, will be the first film to be released directly to fans via BitTorrent Bundle. BitTorrent, a form of peer-to-peer file-sharing, is eternally the subject of controversy due to its large role in film piracy. (Basically, people use BitTorrent technology to upload and download pirated movies, music, video games... everything digital, more or less.) BitTorrent goes legit with BitTorrent bundles, which will let fans pay what they want for Hits.

Distributor Honora Productions also plans to release Hits to theatres, with fans again given the opportunity to pay what they want. Funds for this endeavor will come from a Kickstarter campaign; the more money Cross gets, the more cities his film can go to. "We want you to decide how much tickets cost and you pay artists directly, not distributors or studios," Cross writes. "This is an experiment, a first of its kind to see if we can make it more sustainable for both fans and filmmakers."

Hits is also getting a more traditional release, with more traditional prices, involving theatres in New York and LA and usual suspects iTunes, Google Play and Vimeo.

“With the release of HITS, we’re giving audiences what they want, when they want it, in the form they want it in and at a price that they choose,” says Honora founder Giles Andrew. “As far as we know, this experiment is the first of its kind and was borne out of an unwavering belief in the film and our hopes for it to reach the widest possible audience.”

Of course, for the experiment to be successful, it will help if the film's good. Take a look at the trailer and see if it's something you might be interested in:

'Taken 3' Exceeds Expectations, Becomes Second-Highest January Opening

Taken 3

The powers of Liam Neeson, Action Hero appear to be limitless--Taken 3, the final movie in the Taken series (until they reboot it, possibly with Jai Courtney--you know it's happening), was predicted to earn $30 million on its opening weekend, but it took (ha ha) $40.4 million instead, which is really good for A) a movie coming out in January, notoriously the doldrums of the movie year, and B) a  movie with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 12%. Taken 3 has now supplanted Cloverfield for the highest-ever January opening, behind last year's Ride Along.

It looks like Taken 3 used up all of Selma's box office mojo, at least for now--an expansion to wide release netted the civil rights drama only $11.2 million, putting it in a distant second place. With its positive buzz and awards season working its way up to an Oscar frenzy, though, Selma should have pretty good legs in the coming weeks. It already won one Golden Globe last night (Best Original Song) and is expected to clean up when Oscar nominations are announced on Thursday.

Rounding out the top five were holdovers Into the Woods (weekend gross: $9.7 million; total gross: $105.2 million), last week's (and the week before that, and the week before that) number one The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (weekend gross: $9.4 million; total gross: $236.5 million) and Unbroken (weekend gross: $8.3 million; total gross: $101.6 million).

Inherent Vice

The Imitation Game and Inherent Vice both added several hundred theatres, with the former (weekend gross: $7.6 million; total gross: $40.8  million) hanging on in the top ten and the latter pulling in a lackluster $2.9  million (total gross: $4.4 million). American Sniper continues to be the king of the per theatre average, earning $555,000 on just four screens; it should do well when it expands to wide release next weekend.

In terms of limited releases, the only one to make waves was Dominik Graf's period piece Beloved Sisters, which earned $25,000 on nine screens.

Box Office on Track to Be 'Taken' by Liam Neeson

Taken 3

Do you know how happy I am that 20th Century Fox changed Taken 3's title, and I didn't have to type "Box Office on Track to Be 'Tak3n' by Liam Neeson"? Very, very glad, my friends.

With no competition from new wide releases, the third and final film in the Taken trilogy (now that poor daughter will finally get to take a break) should be able to handily take the number one spot from holiday holdover The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Taken 2 opened at nearly $50 million in 2012, but Taken 3 is very unlikely to hit that mark due to decreased audience interest in the franchise; Fox is aiming for a nice, round $30 million instead.

After a solid limited run that's earned it $2.2 million so far, civil rights drama Selma hits wide release today at 2,179 theatres. Chances are good for it to beat the diminishing returns of the Christmas set (The Hobbit, Into the Woods, Unbroken and Night at the Museum: The Secret of the Tomb), as well. Expect those first three to fill out the top five.

In terms of limited releases, Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice expands from 16 theatres to 645. Reception is more mixed than with other Anderson movies, and there hasn't been as much awards buzz. Cracking the top 10 will be possible, but by no means assured.

Predestination

Among the even smaller releases you lucky ducks in major movie markets like New York and LA will get to see, we have '70s Appalachian drama The World Made Straight, starring Noah Wyle and Jeremy Irvine (the reviews have been quite good, unlike Irvine's The Woman in Black 2, which came out last weekend and will likely see its numbers bottom out due to poor word-of-mouth); the Spierig brothers' time travel thriller Predestination; the period piece Beloved Sisters; and Dutch drama It's All So Quiet, featuring a tour de force performance from the late Jeroen Willems.

'The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies' Enters the New Year Victorious

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has been chilling it at the top of the box office long enough for a second and a third breakfast--it handily defeated all... well, one of the new wide releases to hold onto the top spot for the first weekend of the year. Its $21.9 million weekend haul brings its box office total so far to $220.7 million. Disney's Into the Woods and Angelina Jolie's Unbroken came in a close second and third, earning $19 million and $18.3 million, respectively, while Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb slid two spots to number five with a $14.4 million weekend gross ($89.7 million total).

That aforementioned new release, The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, took fourth place with $15.1 million; its Daniel Radcliffe-starring predecessor earned $20.8 million when it opened in February 2012. Add that to Angel of Death's poor critical reception (26% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and a CinemaScore of C, and our reviewer Ethan Alter's prediction about the lack of a third movie is looking pretty accurate.

The Interview added 250 theaters but still saw its box office decrease by nearly 40%--looks like a good chunk of the people who wanted to see it already ponied up for the record-breaking digital release. American Sniper which pulled in a massive per-theatre average of $152,500 last weekend, remained basically steady, earning $640,000 on the same four screens. It expands to wide release on January 16th.

For new limited releases, J.C. Chandor's A Most Violent Year earned $188,000 on four screens--count the entire five-day weekend, and its gross is $300,000. Documentary The Search for General Tso's Chicken earned $9,600 on two screens.