A couple of Oscar consultants have told me they believe the majority of ballots are mailed back to PriceWaterhouse the first weekend after they are received — i.e., by this Monday morning. In a few hours, we’ll know the choice of the Directors Guild, whose choice is historically the single best historical predictor of the Oscars. And then there’s the box office factor. With “The Reader” and “Milk” finally going into wide release, this is the first weekend that all five Best Picture nominees are truly going head-to-head at the boxoffice. As of Friday, only one of them — “Slumdog Millionaire” (the sole title getting a sizeable “Oscar bounce” in its per-venue average) — even cracked the top 10, in the No. 7 position. Here’s where the others unimpressively landed:
11. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
16. “The Reader”
19. “Frost/Nixon”
20. “Milk”
What did audiences actually want to see? In order of preference, “Taken,” “The Uninvited,” “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” “Gran Torino,” “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans” and “New in Town” topped the charts, in that order.