On the night Hollywood markets itself to the world, it spread its awards around to classic Hollywood genres: the star-studded musical ("Les Miserables"); the epic Western ("Django Unchained"); the tony literary adaptation ("Life of Pi"); the historical bio pic ("Lincoln"); the romantic comedy ("Silver Linings Playbook"); and the international thriller ("Argo"). These iconic genres — rather than quirky independent films — were the major award winners. The biggest winners were also the biggest box office hits, each of these five grossed over $100 million at the U.S. box office.
There were few surprises — other than Michelle Obama unveiling the "Best Picture" winner. Despite some offensive jokes, the show went traditional — and big — with a slew of musical numbers.
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So which studios won? As the awards were unusually spread out between films — the accolades were also unusually split among studios. News Corp.'s Fox was the biggest winner, thanks to "Life of Pi." Then four studios are tied with three awards each: Sony, NBCUniversal's Universal Pictures, Time Warner's Warner Brothers, and the Weinstein Co. (NBCUniversal is parent of CNBC and CNBC.com.)
Steven Spielberg and Stacy Snider's Dreamworks drew two awards, as did Walt Disney, which distributes Dreamworks' films, technically putting Disney into the same category as Fox. Sony Pictures Classics — part of Sony — had another two wins and Universal's Focus features another one.