Turns out when you have won Best pictureFor the most part, the only place you can go for the high.
To open this weekend at checkout is ”Mickey 17“The first film From director Bong Joon Ho since his film won the best picture for “Parasite” already in 2019. “Parasite” was something of a unicornAn international film that crossed all borders and became a global commercial hit of $ 259 million and a distinction circle. Even with Robert Pattinson helps his causeIt will be a tough benchmark to surpass. Warner Bros. projects a global opening weekend of $ 40-50 million.
The difference this time is that director Bong is working on a large studio, Warner Bros., rather than Indie distributor Neon, and “Mickey 17” will open at 3,400 screens domestic, while “parasite” at its top only hit 2,000.
But when a director’s movie wins the best picture, their next next will play better?
When they looked at the last 25 years of best picture winners and their directors, 20 of whom have released films since they won Oscar, only five have had films that surpassed their best image -winning predecessors, despite the notion that these filmmakers generally ride high. But in 12 cases, the director’s next film opened on more screens, generally wide, while the best picture winner received a platform price edition before moving wider.
Here are the five directors whose next films surpassed their best image proceedings.
- Alejandro González Iñártu – “Bildman” ($ 105.7 million worldwide) to “The Revenant” (532.9 million W)
- Martin Scorsese – “The Departed” ($ 277.2 million) to “Shutter Island” ($ 301 million)
- Kathryn Bigelow – “The Hurt Locker” ($ 49.2 million) to “Zero Dark Thirty” ($ 132.8 million)
- Tom Hooper – The “King’s Speech” ($ 419.0 million) to “Les Miséables” ($ 442.5 million)
- Chloé Zhao – “Nomadland” ($ 39.7 million) to “Eternals” ($ 402.3 million)
Some quick warnings: These figures do not stand for inflation, and although we are sure that Zhao’s “Eternals” got a little curiosity because it was directed by a new best picture winner, “Eternal’s” was already in can when “Nomadland” completed its Oscar driving, and it is a Marvel film. The same rules do not apply. Her next movie after Oscar will still come.
But in each of these cases, the subsequent film was a studio edition instead of an indie and released generally, and it saw the benefits as a result. The examples of Iñárritu and Bigelow are perfect examples of a director planned, as these films would triple their screen count and saw even greater returns.
Others had comparable results, with some obviously with long careers. Ridley Scott and Clint Eastwood have been productive since they won the best picture and were before that, although their immediate next movies did not get them back to Box-Office or Oscar Glory directly (Scott had “The Martian” well after “Gladiator” and Eastwood had “American sniper” after “Million Dollar Baby”). The Coen brothers also fit into that category; Their follow -up of “No Country for Old Men” was the tonal left turn “Burn after read”, and the two films made comparable at the checkout, and “True Grit” would later top them both. And no one will hold it against Peter Jackson for “King Kong” who does not live up to the success of “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”
For everyone else, a long -term success, or at least the same repeated level of success, has been much harder to come with. We have a couple of theories about why.
Firstly, the movie you get to make after you won an Oscar often the much more personal, the Pet Passion project you never got to do before, and they almost never do as well as the commercial price pasture that came before it. The Coen brothers followed up “No Country” with “Burn after read” and then “a serious man”, who only earned $ 9.2 million all over the world. Peter Jackson after “Kong” and “Lord of the Rings” went more intimate with “The Lovely Bones”, which made a respectable $ 94.8 million. At least one, Guillermo del Toro, was carried out by Pandemin, with his “Nightmare Alley” ($ 39.7 million) that fell well below his “The Shape of Water” ($ 196.2 million).
And sometimes the movies are just not as good. Ben Affleck’s “Live by Night” after “Argo” was a massive flop, which only earned $ 22.7 million for the period crime drama. Steve McQueen’s first movie after “12 years a slave” was the thriller “Widows”, which made only $ 75.9 million globally to “Slaves” $ 188.5 million. Barry Jenkin’s “IF Beale Street could talk” underperformed “Moonlight.” It took Sam Mende’s five films before he sniffed what “American Beauty” did, and it was for a James Bond movie with “Skyfall.” Both Rob Marshall’s follow-ups for “Chicago”-“Memoirs of a Geisha” and “Nine” did not recreate his best image-winning success.
However, Zhao, for his next movie, will follow a similar pattern, Make a larger studio film, “the harbor,” for focus functions and universal, while Daniels are also stationed at Universal for their follow -up of “everything everywhere at once.” Sean Baker probably has the choice of the hill when it comes to studios if he chooses to work on a larger scale, but we imagine that he wants to do his own cause. And Christopher Nolan, who is currently adapting “The Odyssey” for Universal, may not catch “Oppenheimer’s” near billions of dollars, but we think he will have a good time.
None of this is to suggest that “Mickey 17” does not find an audience or will underperform. The major barriers around the film have been the film’s Constant date changesA lack of publicity outside a Press -junket from London and a budget that Indiewire understands is $ 118 million. “Mickey 17” needs Bongs cache if it hopes to break evenly. But it is called Best Picture of a reason.
