Oscars 2015: 8 Best Picture Nominees, Only 1 Box Office Hit

Oscars 2015 reiterated how being a box office hit does not guarantee a Best Picture nod...

Only one film out of the eight Best Picture nominees in last night's 87th Academy Awards was among the top ten highest-grossing Oscar-nominated movies of the season: "American Sniper."

In fact, the other seven Best Picture nominees made less combined than "American Sniper." U.S. sales for the other nominees totaled just $620.729 million, compared to $319.607 million for the Clint Eastwood-directed "Sniper."

It's typical for high-grossing movies to fail to make an appearance in the Best Picture category.

For instance, last year's biggest-earning Oscar nominee was "Iron Man 3." The film brought in $409 million - slightly more than half the combined sales of that year's nine Best Picture nominees - but was only nominated for Visual Effects (which it lost to "Gravity").

But the most egregious example of late comes from Oscars 2013, when the Best Picture nominations snubbed the year's biggest box office hit.

Marvel's "The Avengers" raked in $623.357 million after its release in 2012 - well over half the $1.002 billion earned by the 2013 nine Best Picture nominees combined. In fact, "Avengers" is now the third-highest grossing movie ever. But it was only nominated for Visual Effects that year, and lost to "Life of Pi."

Here's how the eight Best Picture contenders rank sales-wise among this year's nominees*:

• "American Sniper" - $319.607 million; 2nd highest-grossing movie of the season.
• "The Imitation Game" - $83.921 million; 15th highest-grossing movie of the season.
• "The Grand Budapest Hotel" - $59.1 million; 16th highest-grossing movie of the season.
• "Selma" - $49.598 million; 18th highest-grossing movie of the season.
• "Birdman" - $37.733 million; 20th highest-grossing movie of the season and Best Picture winner.
• "The Theory of Everything" - $34.145 million; 22nd highest-grossing movie of the season.
• "Boyhood" - $25.295 million, 24th highest-grossing movie of the season.
• "Whiplash" - $11,330 million, 28th highest-grossing movie of the season.

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Now here are the Oscar-nominated movies that really drove box office sales this season* - notice only "American Sniper" nabbed a Best Picture nomination at the 2015 Oscars...

The 10 Highest-Grossing Movies Nominated for Oscars in 2015

1. 

   "Guardians of the Galaxy" - $333.176 million; two nominations (Makeup and Visual Effects), no wins.

2. "American Sniper" - $319.607 million; six nominations (Picture, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Editing, Sound, Sound Editing), one win (Sound Editing).

3. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" - $259.766 million; one nomination (Visual Effects), no wins.

4. "The LEGO Movie" - $257.760 million; one nomination (Original Song); no wins.

5. "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" - $253.763 million; one nomination (Sound Editing), no wins.

6. "Maleficent" - $241.410 million; one nomination (Costume Design), no wins.

7. "X-Men: Days of Future Past" - $233.921 million; one nomination (Visual Effects), no wins.

8. "Big Hero 6" - $220.225 million; one nomination and one win (Animated Feature).

9. "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" - $208.545 million; one nomination (Visual Effects), no wins.

10. "Interstellar" - $187.566 million; five nominations (Art Direction, Visual Effects, Sound, Sound Editing, Original Score), one win (Visual Effects).

*Domestic gross numbers, courtesy of Box Office Mojo.

Tara Clarke is an Associate Editor at Money Morning. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraKateClarke.

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Related Sources:

• Box Office Mojo: Academy Awards 2014