Not even Lionsgate could have anticipated the huge success of La La Land. The Whiplash follow-up from Damien Chazelle, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, won a lot of critics’ hearts and went on to match the Oscar nominations which were held by both Titanic and All About Eve. Meanwhile, one of its Best Picture Competitors has managed to surpass it in the box office.
At the moment, Hidden Figures sits at the top of the Oscars box office heap. The biographical tale is heart-warming and follows a team of African American mathematicians who played a major role in the early years of NASA and has been further nominated for three total Oscars (compared with 14 for La La Land) and another one includes Best Supporting Actress for Octavia Spencer.
The movie may be wearing the crown, but both films have performed increasingly well at the US Box Office. The overall takings of La La Land are 118.4 million dollars, and Hidden Figures managed an 119.3 million dollars. This is even more impressive considering it has been released in the US for two weeks less than the musical by Chazelle.
Hidden Figures stars Taraji P. Benson and Janelle Monae of Moonlight, and it looks ready to build on its success when released on 17th February in the UK. It tough to see how it overcame the box office earnings of La La Land. However, the Oscar favorite is on its way to becoming the biggest selling winner in several years.
Jimmy Kimmel will present this year’s Academy Awards, and it will take place on 26th February. Hidden Figures and La La Land have been neck on the neck, but the former recently edged forward and now sits at the Highest Grossing Best Picture nominee.
Make no mistakes; both these films are killing at the box office. After sweeping the Oscars at the end of the month, La La Land can retake the number one spot as it is expected to do, but its international take is much higher than is worth noting.
Hidden Figures recently released in Irish Cinemas this week and it tells the remarkable story of three African American women, named Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan, working at NASA and the indispensable role which they played in sending John Glenn, to space, back in 1962. Both critically and commercially, the film has been widely accepted.
It boasts a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which indicates immensely positive reviews and it has also earned a great $120 million in the United States, and it sent itself ahead of presumed Oscar front-runner, La La Land.
Why is this significant? First of all, Hidden Figures is a female-led historical drama which shows three African-American women. If you are an emotional human being, you will be very much aware of Hollywood’s recent aversion to making movies which are not based on comic books, let alone dramas which are starring three women of color.
The studios are slowly starting to take chances on female-led movies, but they are still quite a few and far in between. Meanwhile, despite the fact that success of films like Ghostbusters, Gravity, Mad Max: Fury Road, Pitch Perfect 2, Spy, Lucy, The Hunger Games, The Heat and Black Swan, all of which crossed the 200 million dollars’ mark at the box office, shows that you don’t need to be a male to sell movies.