How box-office expectations upended the 2026 Oscars race

Twenty-five years ago (25!), I was talking with John Cusack about his movie “High Fidelity,” the one where he played Rob Gordon, a record store owner and compulsive list maker. We were batting around top-fives — Rob’s top five movies: “Blade Runner,” “Cool Hand Luke,” the two “Godfather” films and “The Shining” are as good a list as any — and I asked Cusack if he, like Rob, had a funeral music top five.

“‘Many Rivers to Cross’ feels like the perfect choice at No. 1,” Cusack answered, citing the great Jimmy Cliff’s enduring anthem of perseverance.

Now Cliff has crossed over to the other side, which makes it feel like a good time to cue up “The Harder They Come” — though there is never a bad time to play that trailblazing reggae soundtrack.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter, thankful I can see clearly now the rain is gone. Let’s look at how box-office success is all relative these days when it comes to awards season.

With Oscar voters, box-office perception is reality

What movies are you seeing this Thanksgiving weekend? If you’re pushing aside the pie and leftovers, chances are you might be buying a ticket for “Wicked: For Good” or “Zootopia 2.” The “Wicked” sequel opened to an estimated $150 million last weekend, besting the original and making my optimistic forecast for its Oscar prospects look a little rosier.

Meanwhile, “Rental Family,” a sweet, superficial drama starring Brendan Fraser looking to savage your heartstrings once again, opened to just $3.3 million from nearly 2,000 screens. Even in a lead actor field that isn’t particularly deep this year, Fraser’s chances of returning to the Oscars are now pretty much nil.

“Rental Family” is the latest fall film festival awards contender starring an A-list (or A-list-adjacent) actor to disappear at the box office. The list includes “The Smashing Machine” (Dwayne Johnson), “Christy” (Sydney Sweeney), “After the Hunt” (Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield) and “Die My Love” (Jennifer Lawrence).

Going through these titles, you could make a case that moviegoers are simply showing discernment. None of the movies worked. Critics shrugged, and audiences responded in kind. Good on Johnson and Sweeney for using their star power to stretch, but when people are questioning if they can afford to eat out at McDonald’s, they’re going to need a reason to buy a ticket beyond mere curiosity.

The dead-on-arrival opening weekends of these movies have recast the lead actor and actress Oscar races, boosting anyone not stained by perception of outright failure.

But in this post-pandemic age of moviegoing, what constitutes success? Pushing through to December when the critics groups (as well as “critics” groups) start handing out awards and nominations, the goal is to convey an impression of success and hope that financial windfall might follow.

For example: Joachim Trier’s decidedly unsentimental family drama “Sentimental Value” has parlayed its strong word of mouth and critical acclaim to decent-enough ticket sales in its limited engagement the last two weeks. No one expects a Norwegian-language movie to burn up the box office. Doing fine is a victory.

Then there’s Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon,” a modest, moving portrait of legendary Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, which opened last month in five theaters, quickly expanded to nearly 700 screens before retreating to a few dozen. It didn’t flame out commercially but has grossed a mere $2 million. That’s … OK. The strong reviews for the film and its lead, Ethan Hawke, have kept Hawke in the conversation for his first lead actor Oscar nomination.

Is it fair that Hawke lives while Lawrence, Sweeney, Roberts and Johnson, whose movies opened wide to disastrous results, feel finished?

“Oscar voters aren’t going to watch a movie that has been deemed a failure,” says a veteran awards publicist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the situation candidly. “When people read those scary headlines opening weekend, they don’t forget.”

Oscar Isaac in “Frankenstein.”

(Ken Woroner / Netflix)

Netflix, which opens its contending films in qualifying releases before they land on the streaming platform, is mostly immune to this kind of negative publicity as it doesn’t report box-office numbers. But it will release the number of “views” its films rack up. Guillermo del Toro’s monster movie “Frankenstein” accumulated nearly 63 million views in its first 10 days; Kathryn Bigelow’s riveting thriller “A House of Dynamite” totaled 31.6 million in its first two weeks. (The company defines a view as the total time spent watching a movie divided by the running time.)

Guess which movie is currently Netflix’s perceived Oscar favorite?

The movie to watch this weekend then, in more ways than one, is Chloé Zhao’s celebrated drama “Hamnet,” which has piled up audience awards at film festivals the last several weeks. Focus Features is platforming it in 100-plus theaters, and if you live in Southern California, you won’t have to drive too far to see this beautiful story of love and loss and transcendent catharsis.

What narrative will emerge? I’ll write more about “Hamnet” on Monday. For now, get thee to a theater and let me know what you think.