It’s the second awards season without The Weinstein Company – a studio that often dominated awards shows. TWC was also very strategic in how they distributed their Oscar contenders. And now, Universal is stepping in and taking a move right out of Weinstein’s “playbook” (you’ll get the pun in a minute).
“Green Book” opened in 25 theaters on November 16 before expanding to 1,063 locations 5 days later, on Nov. 21. I remember seeing “Green Book” at the FilmColumbia festival in October and thinking it was going to be the crowd-pleasing moneymaker and darling of awards season.
But some controversies surrounding Viggo Mortensen and the production team of the film initially prevented that from taking place. By January 6, “Green Book” had only earned $35 million. But that night – it won the Best Picture: Comedy or Musical Golden Globe Award.
So Universal added a couple more theater locations, as wins for Mahershala Ali and the movie (including Best Picture at the Producers Guild of America Awards) kept piling up.
When “Green Book” earned 5 Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture, on Jan. 22, Universal chose to expand the movie to 2,430 theaters that weekend. The result: a $5.5 million weekend, good enough for 6th place.
The film added even more locations the next weekend and stayed in the 6th position. And this past weekend, it just fell slightly to 7th.
“Green Book” is benefiting big time off the Oscar nominations and is currently up to $62 million – a 45% total increase from where it was at the day before the Oscar noms.
As I mentioned at the top, this strategy was commonplace for The Weinstein Company, which did this for their showcase films nearly every year from 2010-2016:
“THE KING’S SPEECH” (2010)
Pre-Nominations Highest Number of Theaters: 1,680
Pre-Nominations Box Office Total: $58 million
Expanded Theater Total: 2,584
Box Office Total to Oscar Day: $114.2 million (+96.9%)
“THE ARTIST” (2011)
Pre-Nominations Highest Number of Theaters: 662
Pre-Nominations Box Office Total: $12.4 million
Expanded Theater Total: 1,005
Box Office Total to Oscar Day: $31.8 million (+156.5%)
“SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK” (2012)
Pre-Nominations Highest Number of Theaters: 745
Pre-Nominations Box Office Total: $35.7 million
Expanded Theater Total: 2,809
Box Office Total to Oscar Day: $107.2 million (+200.3%)
“AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY” (2013)
Pre-Nominations Highest Number of Theaters: 905
Pre-Nominations Box Office Total: $9.9 million
Expanded Theater Total: 2,411
Box Office Total to Oscar Day: $37.1 million (+274.8%)
“THE IMITATION GAME” (2014)
Pre-Nominations Highest Number of Theaters: 1,566
Pre-Nominations Box Office Total: $42.8 million
Expanded Theater Total: 2,403
Box Office Total to Oscar Day: $83.9 million (+96%)
“LION” (2016)
Pre-Nominations Highest Number of Theaters: 575
Pre-Nominations Box Office Total: $16.5 million
Expanded Theater Total: 1,802
Box Office Total to Oscar Day: $42.8 million (+159.4%)
Source: Box Office Mojo