When the Academy expanded its best picture category from five films to as many as 10 in 2009, the goal was to counter the trend toward smaller movies grabbing the Oscar spotlight and to bring in some higher-grossing studio films so the public would have more of a rooting interest in the annual awards show. At first, it worked, with the 2010 crop generating a whopping $4.7 billion worldwide (Avatar’s $2.7 billion helped).
