The 89th Academy Awards aren't until Feb. 26, but it's the Oscar nominations announced Tuesday that make a bigger difference for a movie's bottom line. "La La Land" got 14 nods, putting it in a tie with "Titanic" and "All About Eve" for the most nominations ever.
Call it the "nomination bounce" — when a film gets the nod, moviegoers rush out to see it in the weeks between nominations and the awards themselves. By the time the actual awards have come, people have either seen it or aren't going to.
Look at "127 Hours," the 2010 drama about James Franco being trapped under a boulder in Utah. After enjoying initial success late in the year, ticket sales had pretty much stalled by the time nominations came out in mid-January 2011. Six nominations gave the movie new life at the box office. The week after the nominations, the movie made $3 million, up from less than $200,000 the prior week.