Oscars 2014: Sony and Warner tie for most nominations
With the stranded-in-space adventure “Gravity” and the 1970s-set con artist romp “American Hustle,” Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures Entertainment led all studios in the Oscar nominations on Thursday.
Movies released by Warner Bros. -- boosted by Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity” and Spike Jonze’s futuristic love story “Her,” both up for best picture -- earned a total of 21 nominations, while films from Sony, including “American Hustle,” “Captain Phillips” and “Blue Jasmine,” are also up for 21.
The awards will be presented on March 2 at the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center and will be telecast on ABC.
“Gravity” and “American Hustle” tied as the most-nominated films at 10 apiece.
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also gave 13 nominations to movies from Paramount Pictures, including six for Alexander Payne’s black-and-white “Nebraska” and five for Martin Scorsese’s divisive “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Twentieth Century Fox had 11 in total, led by the antebellum drama “12 Years a Slave,” the third most-nominated movie after “Gravity” and “American Hustle.” The film from Fox Searchlight, a unit of 20th Century Fox, locked in nine Oscar nods. Fox also collected nominations for “The Book Thief” and “The Croods.”
The Weinstein Co. landed nine nominations, including four for Stephen Frears’ “Philomena,” while the Walt Disney Co. came away with seven -- two for its animated “Frozen,” one for its admired “Saving Mr. Banks” and two for its flop “The Lone Ranger” -- and Focus Features drew six for its Matthew McConaughey-starring AIDS drama “Dallas Buyers Club.”
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Universal Pictures had four nominations, two for “Despicable Me 2” and two for “Lone Survivor”; CBS Films received two for “Inside Llewyn Davis”; and Lions Gate Entertainment hooked one for the Robert Redford-staring “All Is Lost.”
To be sure, films that are released under a major company’s banner are not always produced by that studio. For example, “Her” was made and financed by Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros.
Several of the nine best picture contenders have enjoyed commercial success, including “Gravity,” which has grossed more than $256 million in the United States and Canada so far and is expanding to 900 theaters nationwide this weekend to capitalize on the buzz. It has grabbed $419 million overseas. The movie “12 Years a Slave” is expanding into 750 theaters this weekend from just 112 last week.
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“American Hustle” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” are both currently in wide release, having taken in domestic grosses of $103 million and $80.7 million, respectively. “Captain Phillips” has grossed $105 million at home.
It has been an especially strong year for Megan Ellison, who produced both “American Hustle” and “Her,” making her the first woman to have two best-picture nominations in the same year. In fact, films from Ellison, including the foreign action picture “The Grandmaster,” had 17 nominations.
Sony’s strong Oscar showing comes after the company’s movies won seven Golden Globes on Sunday, the most of any studio.
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