Oscar's best bang for the buck

This is always a guess, at best, given the funny way that Hollywood determines profit and loss. But among the five Best Picture nominees, it's looking like "Little Miss Sunshine" did especially well. The film was made for $8 million (that doesn't include marketing and distribution, which can easily run two-thirds of the production cost), and it has raked in $86.5 million (domestic and foreign). "The Departed," the only big budget movie in the bunch, is doing well, too, with a production budget of $90 million and a box office take of $254 million. "Babel" was made for $25 million and has grossed $68 million (foreign is doing almost twice the business as domestic). "Letters from Iwo Jima" was made for $19 million and is at $39.3 million (but just $2.6 million of that is domestic). No production numbers are available for "The Queen," but it's generated $72 million. Expect the usual BO bump by virtue of being nominated as Best Picture. (All numbers courtesy of Box Office Mojo.)

And no, it's not your imagination: The lower-budget films made by the specialty houses of big studios tend to do pretty well in the P&L department. S&P analyst Tuna Amobi does note that there's a "statistically insignificant correlation between Oscars and film profits, but the Academy's spotlight could fuel gains in 'back-end' revenues," such as DVD sales and pay TV revenues.