Now that “Sinners” has overperformed with a $45+ million opening weekend, those already arguing for its Best Picture nomination have box office numbers on their side. Since it will surely make at least over $100 million domestic, “Sinners” will be the latest movie championed by those who insist nominating box office hits will drive up Oscar viewing numbers. However, it might be a little harder for “Sinners” to make that case this year, given that two sure-to-be massive box office hits are already picked to get in.
Later this fall, “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” will dominate both the winter box office and Oscar season attention, if their past Best Picture nominated predecessors are any indication. The easy assumption is that if “Wicked,” “Avatar,” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” could muscle their way into nominations and wins, their latest sequels won’t have to do much to do the same. As such, if there are already two box office behemoths everyone is penciling into the Best Picture field, that leaves much less room for “Sinners” to use a box office narrative of its own.
Even if “Sinners” keeps using word of mouth and rave reviews to defy its early projections, it will hardly reach “Wicked” or “Avatar” levels of box office numbers. Since “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” are probably destined to be $400-600 million level domestic hits and billion-dollar global hits at minimum, “Sinners” mere future $100+ million domestic total looks much more modest – and perhaps much less essential for the Academy to recognize.
Of course, many will argue that nominating more box office hits than just two wouldn’t hurt. Yet, since the pandemic, the Academy has found it challenging to do so. For all the concerns and easy jokes that the Oscars don’t nominate box office hits anymore, it was very much a common thing during certain years in the 2010s. In fact, five movies that made over $100 million domestically were in the Best Picture field in 2019, and the lower-grossing “Parasite” was technically a box office phenomenon in its own right when it legged out to over $53 million in America. This capped off a decade where three $100+ million films were nominated in 2018, 2016, 2015, and 2013, four were nominated in 2010, and six were nominated in 2012.
However, since the pandemic changed everything, both the box office and the Academy have struggled to match those standards. The first post-pandemic year of 2022 started well enough, with three $100+ million nominees in “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” and “Elvis,” and eventual Best Picture winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once” setting records for A24 with a $77 million domestic run. Yet in the last two years, only two box office hits each made the Best Picture field, although “Oppenheimer” did win it all in 2023 by beating “Barbie.” Nonetheless, both “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two” fell shorter in 2024 while smaller films like “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” and “Conclave” battled it out for the win.
By the standards of this decade so far, the Best Picture race only has room for two box office smashes at a time and maybe three at most. As such, considering how “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” have already called dibs on those spots, it seems hard to imagine that the Academy will really need something like “Sinners” to drive up ratings and attention, too.
Still, this assumption presumes that “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” will just get checked into the field like their predecessors did. While it is very easy to assume nothing will knock them off, they aren’t quite the mortal locks that “Wicked” and the last two “Avatar” films became – at least until people actually see them.
Honestly, the standard that both “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” have to meet with critics isn’t very high, which makes them both more untouchable and perhaps more vulnerable all at once. Last year, “Wicked” was one of the three lowest-reviewed Best Picture nominees to get in, while “Avatar” didn’t exactly have rave reviews beyond its 3D visuals, and “Avatar: The Way of Water’s” scores were slightly worse.
In that context, it’s easier to figure that “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” only need slightly above-average scores to stay in the running before the box office takes care of the rest, much like it did before. That might be especially galling this time, considering that “Sinners” might well end this year with the best reviews of any would-be blockbuster in 2025 – and almost no one expects “Wicked: For Good” or “Avatar: Fire and Ash” to have anything close to a 98% Tomatometer or an 8.7 average score on Rotten Tomatoes. If they both perform at or below the lower standards of their predecessors and still help get “Sinners” snubbed out, the backlash against these franchises will undoubtedly be larger than it was in 2024, 2022, or 2009.
But on the other hand, maybe “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” will be in more need of better reviews than their earlier films had. Since “Wicked: For Good” is adapting the second half of a musical whose most iconic and well-remembered parts were in the first half – as “Wicked” helped back up last year – a Part 2 movie that is similarly weaker than Part 1 could get it in more trouble with voters. As for “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” since it is the middle chapter of a proposed five-film saga, a Part 3 that turns out weaker beyond its visuals than Part 2 and Part 1 might not get as much leeway this time.
The “Wicked” and “Avatar” movies nominated before only had to hit the minimum standard of critical acclaim to get in Best Picture. If one of both of these sequels takes a notable creative step backward from that low standard, then the box office alone might not be enough to wave that aside again. In that scenario, with only one or zero of these megahits getting in, perhaps something like “Sinners” will be more necessary to nominate as a backup plan – and will surely be met with more approval from critics and fans.
Still, even if “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” both squeak in, there can be a world where there’s room for “Sinners” as well. Suppose there are only eight nomination slots to fight for as a result. In that case, it might be trickier, depending on what kind of indie successes, festival favorites, and win-competitive films emerge to fill out the field. Given that Warner Bros already has a potential Oscar favorite ahead with Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio’s “One Battle After Another,” that might get all of Warner’s campaign resources regardless – assuming it makes enough to balance out its $110+ million budget and late September release.
Either way, “One Battle After Another” probably won’t reach “Sinners” box office numbers, barring Anderson’s best reviews and DiCaprio’s most considerable drawing power yet. But there might not be many, if any, other movies in serious awards contention that match “Sinners” box office either, unless something like “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” or “F1” crosses over from mere summer hit to awards consideration. If, at worst, “Sinners” is the third and lowest-grossing $100+ million film with a serious Oscar push, its path is narrower but not impossible.
Ironically, the last time an “Avatar” film got nominated was the last time three $100 million films got in. If “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is this year’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Wicked: For Good” is this year’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” perhaps “Sinners” can be this year’s “Elvis” in more ways than one – a more modest $100+ million hit that still used a lot of music and flash from an A-list director to get in. And, of course, “Elvis” hardly had the reviews “Sinners” racked up but got in anyway, although a biopic about one of history’s most famous musicians is an easier sell to the Academy than a vampire/blues R-rated horror film.
Given those obstacles and how an R-rated, auteur-directed vampire film in “Nosferatu” only got four technical nominations just last year, any imaginary box office quota might be the least of “Sinners” hurdles ahead. Nonetheless, in a season where everyone expects two other megahits to fill that Academy quota until further notice – or until “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” get rated by critics – box office alone may or may not be the advantage that gets “Sinners” in if anything can.
A film like “Sinners” needs a lot more help to have a chance—and maybe having one or two fewer box office hits to fight against is an ideal, if not necessary, first step. Do you think “Sinners” will be another Oscar contender for Ryan Coogler? Have you seen it yet? If so, what did you think of it? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
