May 26, 2012

What is the “Oscar Bump?”

by Rebecca Pahle | Published March 3, 2010

It’s no secret that winning the Oscar for Best Picture can boost a film’s earnings. There are some films, like The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, that saw a huge audience before winning the coveted award, while other films, like Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, had a smaller audience prior to Oscar night, so their win gave them a huge boost.

It’s known as the “Oscar bump”, and the following chart, provided by Hollywood.com’s Award Ceremony Central, illustrates exactly how big the bump has been for Best Picture-winning films in past years. Now we have only to predict what the bump will be for this year’s winner, whichever film it turns out to be…

Visit http://www.hollywood.com/AwardsCeremonyCentral for more Oscar content.

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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

Comment by Joe on 3/03/10 at 2:06 pm

I’m sorry, I love this site and read it religiously, but false statistics are my pet peeve. This chart simply doesn’t account for one simple thing that is completely distorting what’s being suggested with the chart- release date. If a movie is released in December (and in some cases doesn’t hit a major market until well into the new year), OF COURSE it is going to make most of its bank after the Oscars.

Titanic was released in December 19th.

Slumdog was ‘released’ in November, but it wasn’t available in most of the nation until well into the new year.

Chicago was released on December 27th.

A Beautiful Mind was released December 21st.

Million Dollar Baby, December 15th.

All of those are the top post-Oscar earners in the chart. The issue is more about release date than the Oscar bump- though of course there is a bump related to the Oscars that helps them stay in theaters to keep earning.

No Country and The Departed were both already in wide release in October and November. They are the smallest post-Oscar bump.

Comment by Rebecca on 3/06/10 at 7:12 pm

Joe, you make a good point. It’s impossible to say who’s seeing a film post-Oscar because they’re curious about it due to its Oscar win, and who’s seeing it because they would have anyway but just hadn’t gotten around to it yet because it came out not too long ago. Hadn’t thought about that!