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 The road-trip movie about race relations in the segregated U.S.
South of the 1960s had collected more than $127.1 million at
global box offices as of Monday, according to estimates released
on Tuesday by website Box Office Mojo.
Nearly two-thirds of that sum - $82 million - came after Oscar
nominations were announced on Jan. 22.
That topped the $55.8 million boost for 21st Century Fox Inc's
rock biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody." The story of late Queen
frontman Freddie Mercury has grabbed a much larger total of
$854.3 million, three-fourths of it outside the United States
and Canada.
(For a graphic on box office performance by Oscar-nominated
films, see: https://tmsnrt.rs/2TWZgg1)
Movie studios execute carefully crafted release strategies and
marketing campaigns leading up to the Oscars, hoping the
prestige of the nominations will draw audiences to theaters.
Comcast Corp's Universal Pictures, for example, debuted "Green
Book" in about 1,000 domestic theaters in November. That number
had been slashed nearly in half just ahead of the announcement
of this year's Oscar contenders.
After the movie landed five Oscar nominations, Universal
expanded the number of locations playing "Green Book" to more
than 2,600 by early February.
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Backers of "Green Book" also plowed $1.4 million into national
television ads after the nominations through Monday, according to
data measurement firm iSpot. That came in second among best-picture
nominees to the $2.2 million to advertise "Vice," a political satire
from Annapurna Pictures.
The highest-grossing movie among the eight best-picture nominees is
"Black Panther" from Walt Disney Co's Marvel Studios. "Black
Panther" was 2018's second-highest grossing movie worldwide with
$1.3 billion in global ticket sales. It left theaters long before
Oscars season.
It is unclear how much the 10 nominations for Netflix Inc's "Roma,"
a foreign-language film about a Mexican housekeeper, boosted its
audience. Netflix has declined to release ticket sales data for
"Roma," which has been playing in a more limited range of theaters
since November and is currently in 74 U.S. locations.
Major U.S. theater chains refuse to show Netflix movies because the
company refuses to wait the traditional three months before making
its films available outside of theaters. "Roma" was released on
Netflix's streaming service in December.
The best-picture winner will be announced at the Academy Awards
ceremony on Sunday.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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