This graph shows Viggo Mortensen’s score on our annual analysis of leading stars at the box office. The Star Score represents points assigned to each of the leading stars of the top 100 movies (based on box office) in the current year and two preceding years. For appearing in the number one movie in a year a star gets 100 points, the number two movie 99 points and so on..
Latest Ranking on Selected Box Office Record Lists
After crushing it at the box office last weekend, Top Gun: Maverick ascends even higher than its record breaking opening theater count, adding 16 additional theaters to its already vast location count this week, coming in this week in 4,751 theaters. Two other wide releases land in theaters this week in Watcher and David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future with the former set to debut in 764 locations, while the latter in an estimated 900 theaters. This week is much more subdued regarding new releases as next week another monster franchise sequel will release by way of Jurassic World: Dominion, which is projected to arrive in about 4,500 locations.
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It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. We will announce the winners and have our reactions as they happen, while keeping track of how our readers did in predicting the outcomes.
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It’s Oscar Day, and we will be live blogging the show. Before that, let’s take a last look at the nominations with a few annotations. in Italics are those that have received the most votes from our readers so far in our Oscar contest (which is open to new entries until noon, Pacific, today—enter now!). Bold films are those films I think will win. Meanwhile, those that are Underlined are those I want to win. Not all categories have underlined nominees, because not all categories have someone I’m cheering for, or because there are two nominees I couldn’t pick between. For example, I would be happy with half of the Best Picture nominees winning.
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. This week we look at the four acting categories, continuing with Best Lead Actor. Like the Best Supporting Actor category, there is a favorite here, but an upset wouldn’t be that shocking.
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The Oscar nominations were announced yesterday starting at just after 5 am Pacific time. They do this every year for reasons no one has been able to adequately explain to me. Because it was the day after a long weekend, it took a bit of time to get all the normal work done and digest the results. And there were some interesting results to digest. No one film led the way with total nominations, as two films, The Favourite and Roma tied with 10 nominations each.
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The BAFTA nominations were announced and The Favorite led the way with 12 nominations. Sometimes the BAFTAs are a really good indicator for who will do well on Oscar night. Other times their bias to British films is too much. I think this year will be an example of the latter and I don't think The Favourite is suddenly an Oscar favorite. That said, there’s still some things you can learn here.
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The Screen Actors Guild were the third group to announce their nominations for this awards season. There’s not a lot of surprises on this week’s list. A Star is Born led the way with four nominations, while The Favourite was right behind with three.
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The Golden Globes nominations are the second major Awards Season set to come out. It is still very early in the year and the predictive value of the Golden Globes is a little suspect, but there are still some things to learn here. For example Vice led the way with six nominations, so its Oscar chances have gone up, but don’t expect it to lead the way when the Oscars nominations are announced.
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This week is filled with films that are earning reviews that are good, but likely not quite good enough to thrive in limited release. There are a few exceptions, mostly documentaries. This leaves Green Book as the only film that has a real shot at mainstream success. In fact, given its reviews, it could earn some Awards Season success.
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October continued 2018’s phenomenal box office run, for the most part. There were a couple of films that missed expectations by $10 million or more, but on the other hand, Vemon and Halloween were smash hits and are now the first and second biggest October debuts of all time. Furthermore, 2018’s lead over 2017 is, as I’m writing this, just shy of $1 billion and if 2018 can maintain this lead, it will be one of the biggest year-over-year increases of all time. It won’t. The fun times end now. Why is that? Last November was amazing. There were only eight wide releases, but six of them earned more than $100 million. Three of those hit $200 million, including Thor: Ragnarok, which earned over $300 million. This year, there are a lot more movies opening in November, but it is a case of quantity over quality. No movie is expected to come close to $300 million and it would take a bit of luck just to have five $100 million hits. The film I’m looking forward to the most is Ralph Breaks the Internet, while it, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch, and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald are all aiming for $200 million this month. Fortunately, even if 2018 is behind 2017’s pace by around $300 million, 2018 has built up such a large lead that it should still go into December with an insurmountable lead at the box office.
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When Tony Lip, an Italian-American bouncer with a seventh-grade education, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley, a world-class African-American pianist on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on the “Negro Motorist Green Book” to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for Blacks. Confronted with racism, danger—as well as unexpected humanity and humor—they are forced to set aside differences to survive and thrive on the journey of a lifetime.
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It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. Before that, let’s take a last look at the nominations with a few annotations. Nominees in italics are those that have received the most votes from our readers so far in our Oscar contest (which is open to new entries until noon, Pacific, today—enter now!). Bold films are those films I think will win. Meanwhile, those that are Underlined are those I want to win. Not all categories have underlined nominees, because not all categories have someone I’m cheering for, or because there are two nominees I couldn’t pick between.
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at Best Leading Actor, which is a three-way race this year. This makes it one of the most competitive categories we will be talking about.
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The Oscar nominations were announced starting at 5:18 am Pacific time. Nothing is good that early in the morning. Worse still, it’s a boring year for nominations with very few surprises worth talking about, especially in the biggest categories. Leading the way was La La Land with 14 nominations, tying the record.
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The BAFTA nominations were announced and it should come as no surprise what film lead the way... La La Land with 11 nominations, Nocturnal Animals and Arrival are tied for second with nine nominations a piece.
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The Screen Actors Guild were the third group to announce their nominations for this awards season. So far there have been three different films earning the most nominations. This could mean the Oscar race will be a lot closer than in past years. This time around Manchester by the Sea led the way with four nominations.
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The Golden Globes nominations were announced and we are starting to see a few names pop up over and over again. La La Land led the way with seven nominations, but Moonlight was right behind with six and Manchester by the Sea earned five. You will be hearing those three names over and over and over again this Awards Season.
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The Independent Spirit Awards nominations were announced last night and thus the 2016 Awards Season begins. There were a few surprises and some snubs to discuss, but for the most part, there’s not a lot nominations that broke the established narrative. It’s because there isn’t really an established narrative. This means films that earn nominations here have a much better chance of doing well going forward and Moonlight looks like it could rise up as a result.
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Captain Fantastic is the only film on this week’s list that I think will do well in theaters. There are some films that are earning better reviews, like Our Little Sister, but no film on this week’s list has the same buzz as this film does.
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Two points before we get to the films on this week's list. One, the column is late. Sorry. Two, anyone else noticing a decrease is stability with Firefox? It has been crashing a lot the past few days, hence the delay with this column. This week’s list is filled with many films that are earning good reviews, but not great reviews, and are playing on Video on Demand. Iris is the best film coming out this week, but Far from the Madding Crowd is probably going to be the biggest hit.
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The list of new releases is a little calmer this week than it was last week. There are still a few movies that could do well. The Two Faces of January has some of the best reviews and has an impressive cast, but it is also playing on Video on Demand, so its box office numbers might not shine. On the other hand, I think Pride will turn its excellent reviews into a long run on limited release. It might even find a significant measure of mainstream success.
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