This year’s Academy Awards broadcast may be among the lowest on record because the five Best Picture nominees’ combined box office gross is about a quarter of what the comparable group grossed a decade ago and about 20% less than a year earlier, Advertising Age reports. Many industry analysts say that when the $17 million-grossing “Frost/Nixon” beat “The Dark Knight,” the No. 2 grossing film in history, for a nomination, Oscar ratings were bound to be impacted, the magazine says.
—Danny King