This weekend, the Oscars will celebrate the best in film, and those statuettes don't come cheap. With that in mind, we've compiled some interesting facts about the money behind the movies: Their biggest winners, their saddest losers, and just how much an Academy Award is worth.
Here are some of the items that will help shape the week that lies ahead on Wall Street: Consumer electronics retailer Conn's reports; Titanic returns in 3-D; motorsports promoter International Speedway will see profits stall, and used-car seller CarMax checks under the hood.
At a time when the music industry is Auto-Tuning its own eulogy and Hollywood has all but given up on DVDs, 1.5 million people lined up at midnight events to score copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, proving that even in an era when more of us want our entertainment for free, some things are still considered worth their price.
Cult classics used to rule in midnight screenings. But in recent years, blockbuster films like Eclipse, The Dark Knight and Avatar, have proven that it's a strategy that can supercharge both ticket sales and buzz.
About 4 million 3-D-capable TV sets will ship in 2010, one out of every 20 flat-screen TVs sold. That's projected to more than double next year and grow tenfold in four years. But hurdles like lack of 3-D programming and bandwith constraints could limit such rapid growth.
Linden Lab's CEO is stepping down and founder Philip Rosedale will return as interim CEO, the parent company to Second Life announced Thursday in a blog posting.
DVD sales have been falling so sharply that some movie industry watchers see extinction around the corner for the format. But in less than a week, Avatar discs have rung up huge numbers. Is this a sign that DVDs will survive, or just James Cameron-generated fluke?
Director James Cameron said that a real-life "Avatar" battle is playing out in Brazil's Amazon rain forest, where indigenous groups are trying to halt the construction of a huge hydroelectric project. Cameron said he was in Brazil's capital to support protesters against the dam.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has accomplished just want it wanted to by expanding its Best Picture category to 10 nominees: creating space for deserving movies that would have been ignored in the past.
"Avatar" is only $50 shy of passing "Titanic" as the largest global box office film in history -- just short of the ship disaster's $1.843 billion mark. The ticket taking "Avatar" all the way to the top spot has already been sold.
