Emma Stone continued promoting Poor Things in New York yesterday, finishing the day that started at Good Morning America at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where she talked Jeopardy! again.
Annette Bening is getting feted in Santa Barbara, Emma Stone is doing the rounds in New York, Lily Gladstone is…not as visible. She’s a major Best Actress contender, the first Native American woman nominated for Best Actress, you think she’d be doing the talk show rounds, but no. It’s almost like these things don’t work the same for everybody!
Anyway, since being nominated for 11 Oscars Poor Things experienced the post-nomination box office bounce. The Friday after the nominations were announced, the film had 165% growth in ticket sales, and the box office now stands at over $51 million. Box office bumps after nominations—and wins—are standard (American Fiction also got a sizeable bump), which is why the Oscars “matter”. Besides just being fun for the pageantry and spectacle of it all, when people inevitably ask why the Oscars even matters, follow the money.
Poor Things will make it easier for Emma Stone to not only continue landing top-tier work as an actor, but to get more projects produced in the future. And since her taste runs to the weird (see also: Maniac, The Curse), it will help her greatly to point at the success of Poor Things as a reason to trust her with tens of millions of dollars.
We can debate the cultural relevance of the Oscars or lament their impact on the industry as a whole, but these things do not exist in a vacuum. No matter how it all turns out on Oscar night, Poor Things is already a huge win for Emma Stone, Producer.