Oscar loves indie

Indie and specialty-market films again dominated the Oscar nominations and enjoyed major “Oscar bumps” at the box office.

Fox Searchlight’s “The Shape of Water,” which received 13 nominations, one short of the record, expanded by more than 1,000 venues. As a result, its post-announcement take jumped more than 17 percent, to $5.7 million. The front-running fantasy has earned more than $52 million worldwide.

Fellow indie best-picture nominees “Phantom Thread,” “Lady Bird” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” all increased their theater counts and grosses, or at least had small boxoffice drops. “Call Me by Your Name” held steady with 815 venues, and a drop of just 11 percent very late in its run (its 10th week in release).

Ditto Focus Features’ “Darkest Hour,” which maintained its theater count and dropped only 6 percent in weekly take; it has earned $45 million domestically and $98 million worldwide.

“Get Out” is the 2017 indie champ, with $254 million worldwide on a $4.5 million budget, which would place it fifth all-time among indie releases. Of course, that depends on your definition of “indie” — here we’ll take the Independent Spirits’ and British Independent Film Awards’ nominations as endorsement.

“Lady Bird,” by the way, was reportedly made for $10 million and has crossed the $40 million mark domestically.

All told, seven of the nine bestpicture candidates qualify as specialty, with only Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” and Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” (the undisputed box-office champ, with $525 million worldwide) considered “studio” films.