Disney’s Top 2020 Oscar Prospects Come Through Its $71 Billion Fox Acquisition. Investors Prefer Its Box Office Dominance.

The Walt Disney Co. set a global box office record last year with such billion-dollar blockbusters as Avengers: Endgame, The Lion King and Frozen 2, none of which are in the running for a Best Picture award at this year’s Oscars. Its top contender: a small-budget film depicting a wacky Adolf Hitler that it acquired along with the rest of the Fox entertainment business in 2019.

Disney has thrown its marketing might behind the Nazi-era film Jojo Rabbit, a story about a 10-year-old nationalist with a close relationship with his imaginary friend—Der Führer—who finds out his mother is hiding a Jew in their attic. The film has received critical acclaim for its unexpected sweetness, charm and comedic timing, and claimed the prestigious People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, a prize that went to last year’s Best Picture winner, Green Book. It collected six Academy Award nominations, including for best picture.

Taika Waititi’s satire, from Searchlight Pictures, is one of two best picture contenders that Disney picked up last year with its $71.3 billion takeover of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets. The other, Ford v Ferrari, is based on the true story of how the American carmaker triumphed over the seemingly unbeatable Ferrari team in the Le Mans race in France in 1966.

Hollywood observers questioned whether Disney would have an appetite for art-house fare, given Walt Disney Studios co-chairman Alan Horn’s success in building lucrative cinematic franchises, including the Harry Potter series he championed at Warner Bros. before he jumped to Disney in 2012. 

CEO Bob Iger told the industry trade Variety and Wall Street he had no plans to change Searchlight Pictures—aside from dropping the “Fox” from its name earlier this year—which has racked up multiple Best Picture awards, including The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Birdman and 12 Years a Slave. 

Still, industry insiders say next year will be a true barometer of Disney’s commitment to championing such filmmaker-driven projects and if it will continue to give the group the kind of autonomy Miramax enjoyed when it won four Best Picture awards as a Disney division between 1993 and 2010. It would be a labor of love if it did support the production of prestige films. Unlike Netflix, which is spending an estimated $100 million on awards campaigns to promote Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, Disney doesn’t share the burden of proving it is a serious destination for Hollywood’s creative community.

Investors, who have pushed Disney stock up almost 30% in the past 12 months, are more likely to be dazzled by the studio’s box office. Disney commanded a 26% share of the global box office, with a record $11.12 billion in ticket sales, according to the measurement firm Comscore. The next closest studio, Warner Bros., brought in $4.4 billion.  

So, Disney doesn’t exactly need the ticket sales “bump” that comes with an Oscar nomination or win. 

“It’s almost unfathomable how huge or monumental Disney has been in the bringing of blockbuster fare to the world,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “But it's kind of like, do you want love or money? Having both is great.”

For the moment, at least, the signs are looking positive for Searchlight. Co-chairs Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley told an industry crowd at the BFI London Film Festival that JoJo Rabbit posed a test for the studio’s new corporate parent, and its senior executives, Iger, Horn and studio co-chairman Alan Bergman.

“I didn’t know what they were going to say about our Nazi satire, but they really appreciated it and the message,” said Utley.