I have always said that the Oscars are bought and paid for in advance. I had an executive at a studio tell me as much. It is all based on who has the best ad campaign, who throws the best parties, and has the best gifts to the voters. There are numerous examples of smaller budget films who low Oscar expectations coming from nowhere against films who had swept the awards prior after they launched a heavy Oscar campaign. As such, keep this in mind.
With the Oscars taking place at the weekend, Decluttrcom, an online site which gives customers cash for their unwanted CDs, DVDs and video games, has done some research into the ‘Best Picture’ winners from the past 10 years to find out which movie ‘paid’ the most for its Oscar wins aftering taking the estimated budget and number of Oscar wins into consideration.
The research found that:
· The Departed – which won four Oscars in 2007 paid $$21,815,894.15 for each of its Oscars – costing the most in comparison to the other films from the past 10 years
· The movie which paid the least for its Oscar wins was Slumdog Millionaire (2009) – paying $1,875,000 for each of its three wins
The blog post can be found here: Decluttr
