好莱坞巨头寄望“奥斯卡效应”带火获奖影片票房

    上周四，好莱坞的精英群体——部分演员、导演和编剧沉浸在获得奥斯卡提名的喜悦之中，制作获提名影片的电影公司则在计算接下来会有多少唾手可得的收益。

    为了一睹获提名影片的风采，影迷们必然会蜂拥而至。这就是所谓的“奥斯卡效应”，它能让电影票房增长数百万美元。

    电影票房统计网站Box Office Mojo提供的数据显示，近年来，获得奥斯卡最佳影片提名后，相关电影的票房均有不同程度的提升——增幅最低的是2013年的18%，最高的则是2012年，超过了32%（有意思的是，金球奖获奖影片的票房增长幅度经常超过奥斯卡获奖电影）。

    斩获奥斯卡奖项对票房的提升力度更大。来自电影信息网站BoxOfficeQuant的数据显示，从1990到2009年，评选结果一经公布，奥斯卡最佳影片在随后几周到几个月内的票房平均可增长1400万美元。当然，不同类别的奥斯卡奖项对票房影响各异，最佳导演奖对电影票房的推动作用大于最佳演员奖。

    此外，赢得奥斯卡奖的成本并不低。为了争取评委的选票，电影公司往往在广告上倾注数千万美元。在它们看来，所有媒体对奥斯卡颁奖典礼的报道都能成为自家电影的免费广告。

    也就是说，奥斯卡提名（以及可能获奖）对制片商及其母公司来说可能意味着大笔收入。今年，获得奥斯卡提名影片最多的是二十世纪福克斯。该公司旗下的福克斯探照灯影业拍摄的《鸟人》和《布达佩斯大饭店》都囊括了包括最佳影片在内的九项提名，成为获提名最多的电影。

    加上《消失的爱人》和《走出荒野》，共有七部影片为福克斯带来了24项提名，这个数字着实令人惊叹。评论界的盛赞帮助福克斯为收获颇丰的2014年画上了一个完美的句号。在这一年，福克斯的票房同比增长了68%，而其他许多电影公司都陷入了票房滑坡的困境。

    索尼影业在2014年过的并不顺利——遭到黑客攻击成了头条新闻，而《刺杀金正恩》也引起了争议。不过，索尼获得了15项奥斯卡提名，在好莱坞排名第二。索尼经典电影公司的《爆裂鼓手》和《狐狸猎手》各获得五项提名。位居第三的是获得11项提名的华纳兄弟，其中六项来自克林特•伊斯特伍德执导的影片《美国狙击手》。

    周四的风光不仅属于大型制片商和它们的母公司。业界大亨哈维和鲍勃•温斯坦兄弟领导的二线制片商温斯坦影业公司拿到了10个奥斯卡提名，其中八个来自《模仿游戏》，这部电影将参与最佳影片的角逐。有线电视网络运营商AMC Networks旗下的IFC电影公司获得了八项提名，其中六项来自拿下金球奖最佳影片的《少年时代》。

    小型电影公司通常推出票房较低的独立电影。奥斯卡带来的票房增长会显著改善它们的处境。不过，无论大小，可能有好几家好莱坞制片公司都觉得自己中了头彩。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    审校：李翔

    A small, elite group of Hollywood actors, directors and screenwriters soaked up the love Thursday for their Academy Award nominations. Meanwhile, the movie studios that put out those celebrated films counted the financial windfall headed their way.

    Moviegoers inevitably flock to nominated films to see what all the fuss is about. Ticket sales can improve by millions of dollars from the so-called “Oscars bump.”

    In recent years, films nominated for the Oscars’ Best Picture award have seen their post-nomination box-office performances improve by anywhere from 18% in 2013, to more than 32% a year earlier, according to Box Office Mojo. (Interestingly, winners at another awards show, the Golden Globes, often see a greater windfall than at the Academy Awards.)

    Films that win the Oscar get an even bigger lift. Between 1990 and 2009, Best Picture winners gained an additional $14 million on average in the weeks and months after some star opened an envelope on stage and called their names, according to BoxOfficeQuant. Of course, the bump in revenue differs across the various award categories with films that win for directing getting a bigger windfall than those handed out for acting.

    Also, winning an Oscar isn’t cheap. Film studios often pour tens of millions of dollars into advertising to get Academy members to vote for their movie. Their hope is that all the awards show coverage in the media will serve as free advertising.

    This is all to say that an Oscar nomination (and potential win) can mean big bucks for studios and their parent companies. This year, the leader when it comes to nominations is 20th Century Fox FOX -0.54% , whose Fox Searchlight subsidiary is responsible for the two films that received the most Oscar nods on Thursday: Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel, both which received nine nominations including for Best Picture.

    Overall, Fox landed a whopping 24 nominations from seven films including Gone Girl and Wild. That huge helping of critical acclaim capped a wildly successful year for the company, whose box-office gross increased 68% year-over-year at a time when many other studios struggled from sinking ticket sales.

    Meanwhile, Sony SNE 1.11% — which had a rough year that included a high-profile hack and controversy over the film The Interview — scored the second-most Oscar nominations, with 15. The company’s Sony Classics studio arm turned out a pair of films, Whiplash and Foxcatcher, that received five nominations each. In third place, was Warner Bros., with 11 nominations, including six for the Clint Eastwood-directed American Sniper.

    Thursday wasn’t just a big day for major studios and their parent companies, either. The Weinstein Company — a “mini-major” studio led by moguls Harvey and Bob Weinstein — racked up 10 Oscar nods, led by eight nominations for Best Picture-contender The Imitation Game. And, IFC Films, which is owned by cable channel operator AMC Networks AMC -0.55% , received a total of eight nominations, with Golden Globes Best Picture winner Boyhood leading the way with six nods.

    For smaller studios that generally put out lower-grossing independent films, any increased revenue spurred by awards season can make a big difference. Big or small, though, several studios across Hollywood are likely feeling like they hit the jackpot Thursday.