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As “True Grit” shows signs of becoming the Oscar season’s first breakout hit, it is reviving a question that has long shadowed the Academy Awards: Does the audience get a vote?...   >>>

As “True Grit” shows signs of becoming the Oscar season’s first breakout hit, it is reviving a question that has long shadowed the Academy Awards: Does the audience get a vote?

Last weekend “True Grit,” written and directed by Ethan and Joel Coen, shocked Hollywood by burning up the box office. The sober western generated $24.4 million in North American theaters, just $1.3 million less than the holiday weekend’s No. 1 movie, the blatantly commercial “Little Fockers.” And “True Grit” dropped only 2 percent from the prior weekend, which was its first in theaters; drops of 50 percent are routine, and anything less than 30 percent is judged by the industry to be spectacular.

“True Grit” has also galloped far ahead of freshly released Oscar contenders like “The King’s Speech,” “Black Swan” and “The Fighter.” Within days, if trends hold, “True Grit” — based on a novel by Charles Portis and filmed by Paramount for just $38 million — will have accumulated about $95 million at the box office, according to analysts, pushing it past “The Social Network,” a heavily promoted best picture prospect that was released by Sony Pictures more than three months ago.



Read more about the New York Times optimistic article about this Coen remake of a John Wayne film.