Using NBR's yearly Top 10/11 (I do think the net they cast will mirror the AMPAS moreso than say, AFI's top 10 or the 10 Drama/Comedy nominees at the Globe), here's how the 2000's have looked box office wise with 10 nominees. I also listed "popular" films that weren't nominated and bolded those that went on to get Oscar noms.

2008
The Dark Knight - 533.3
WALL-E - 223.8
Gran Torino - 148.0
Slumdog Millionaire - 141.3
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - 127.5
Burn After Reading - 60.3
Changeling - 35.7
Milk - 31.8
Defiance - 28.6
The Wrestler - 26.2
Frost/Nixon - 18.6

2007 (No Knocked Up, Ratatouille, Zodiac, Diving Bell...)
The Bourne Ultimatum - 227.4
Juno - 143.0
The Bucket List - 93.4
No Country for Old Men - 74.2
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - 52.8
Atonement - 50.9
Michael Clayton - 49.0
Into the Wild - 18.3
The Kite Runner - 15.8
Lars and the Real Girl - 5.9
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - 3.9

2006 (No Dreamgirls, Borat, Pan's Labyrinth, U93, Children of Men)
The Departed - 132.2
The Devil Wears Prada - 124.7
Little Miss Sunshine - 59.8
Blood Diamond - 57.3
Flags of Our Fathers - 33.6
Babel - 34.3
Notes on a Scandal - 17.5
Letters from Iwo Jima - 13.7
The Painted Veil - 8.0
The History Boys - 2.7

2005 (No King Kong, Batman Begins)
Walk The Line - 119.5
Brokeback Mountain - 83.0
Memoirs of a Geisha - 57.4
Crash - 54.5
Syriana - 50.8
Munich - 47.4
Good Night, and Good Luck. - 31.5
A History of Violence - 31.5
Capote - 28.7
Match Point - 23.1

2004 (No Spider-Man 2, The Incredibles, F 9/11, Kill Bill 2, Eternal Sunshine..., Passion...)
The Aviator - 102.6
Collateral - 101.0
Million Dollar Baby - 100.4
Ray - 75.3
Sideways - 71.5
Finding Neverland - 51.6
Closer - 33.9
Hotel Rwanda - 23.5
Kinsey - 10.2
Vera Drake - 3.7

2003 (No LOTR, Finding Nemo, Kill Bill, American Splendor, City of God)
Seabiscuit - 120.2
Cold Mountain - 95.6
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - 93.9
Mystic River - 90.1
Lost in Translation - 44.5
21 Grams - 16.2
In America - 15.5
The Last Samurai - 15.5
House of Sand and Fog - 13.0
The Station Agent - 5.7

2002 (No LOTR, My Big Fat..)
Chicago - 170.0
Gangs of New York - 77.8
The Hours - 41.6
The Pianist - 32.5
Frida - 25.8
Adaptation. - 22.4
Far from Heaven - 15.9
The Quiet American - 12.9
Rabbit-Proof Fence - 6.1
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing - 3.2

2001 (No LOTR, Harry Potter, Shrek, Beautiful Mind)
Ocean's Eleven - 183.4
Black Hawk Down - 108.6
A.I. Artificial Intelligence - 78.6
Moulin Rouge! - 57.3
In the Bedroom - 35.9
Monster's Ball - 31.2
Memento - 25.5
The Pledge - 19.7
The Man Who Wasn't There - 7.5
Mulholland Drive - 7.2

2000
Gladiator - 187.7
Traffic - 124.1
Billy Elliott - 21.9
Wonder Boys - 19.3
You Can Count On Me - 9.1
Quills - 7.0
Croupier - 6.2
Before Night Falls - 4.2
Dancer in the Dark - 4.1
Sunshine - 3.6

And here's my best guess at the box office for my 2009 BP nominees:

1. Avatar - 500
2. Up - 300
3. Public Enemies - 130
4. Funny People - 130
5. The Lovely Bones - 100
6. Invictus - 100
7. Nine - 100
8. Shutter Island - 70
9. Precious - 40
10. The Hurt Locker - 30

The earning potential for these films is insane. I obviously expect Avatar is to be less a movie and more a phenomenon. BUT even if you take it out of the equation, you still have 5 nominees possibly grossing more than $100 Million apiece, with 1 grossing around $300 Million.

There's also the question of the BP nom bump and how it will be affected by having twice the number of films. I think a fair amount of films, about a 1/3, will not be fall/winter releases. Because the Winter Olympics and the broacast being bumped back, we also get 2 extra weeks of revenue.

I can't wait to see its run through April. It'll cross 300m around New Years.

If there's a film that stands a chance of having everything go exactly right for it, it's Avatar.

STOP IT!!!

I just cant see Avatar doing a Titanic type run ($500m+).

It will no doubt have a biggish opening but not record breaking and then have some great legs - but that would mean $350m-ish.

Well, it took ROTK (which opened Dec 17th) 24 days to pass $300m. Avatar opens on the 18th and has until Feb 2nd to earn $$$ without the assistance of an Oscar nomination. Using ROTK again as an example, it made $345m in the Dec 17-Feb 2 timespan, then got a 10% post nom/post award bump.

So if Avatar follows the same path, it would make $440m adjusted for inflation. But I expect Avatar to hold better and go further thanks to 3D.

Loyal, you're insane if you think that 7 BP nominees will make $100+ million.

Also, I think that with the nominees going up to 10, the box-office push they'll get from the nom buzz will be smaller for each film because it won't mean as much anymore and people won't storm out to see all ten nominees. A bit too many...

Not only that, but there's no way it's opening higher than $68 million. Even if it's mind-blowing, how can it get much higher than $350 million?

After seeing Public Enemies, 6.

eh, I don't think a BP nom meant much in the past few years. Frost/Nixon made 18m, Letters from Iwo Jima made 12m, Capote made 28m (and it won Best Actor)... would they have done much worse without the BP noms?

now that we've moved to ten, i'd say that a BP nomination has close to no effect on box office.

Um, sure as hell they would have. Not only the BP nom matters, but the buzz preceding it and indicating that it will be nominated. Capote, without its buzz, probably would have done similar numbers to, say, Kinsey.

The Reader made around $34 million. And that after a shaky start. Without the surprising BP nom, it would have never even approached $20 million.

Milk certainly capitalized on BP buzz as well.

Slumdog Millionaire is one ofd the biggest gainers from BP buzz. Otherwise, an R-rated, India-set film like this probably wouldn't have made it past $140 million, probably not even past $100 million even with amazing WoM.

Capote wouldn't have gone much beyond it's pre-nom $15 million total without a BP nom, considering it was already out for months. Yeah, it mattered. Letters From Iwo Jima would have made maybe $7-8 million as opposed to almost $14 million.

Also, no freaking way Million Dollar Baby would have done $100+ million without all the BP buzz.

I still think several of the Nov/Dec nominees stand to only make $$$ based on the Best Picture race. Something like Nine has extraordinarily limited appeal. Invictus and Lovely Bones, small dramas with big Oscar hopes.

There are millions of people who still see films based on "nominate for 7 Academy Awards including..." Several of the films nominated this year will have already completed their box office runs by the time nominations come around, so BP nom fatigue wont be a massive issue.

It made like 40% of it's gross after winning.

Invictus and Lovely Bones are the types of films that would do well without noms but then kind of explode with noms. Its kind of win-win for these two IMO.

Go Lovely Bones, Go!

Yep. If Lovely Bones captures the essence of the book (which was pretty huge as far as recent book sales and marketing go) then it could be a huge success with a female audience, and with Jackson and the star power connected, it has one of the better pedigrees for success still. And being released in December is the icing on the cake.

In fact, it might be (outside of Nine and Up) one of the films that speaks to a female audience come Oscar time.

The script is online. Read it months ago.

Is there a chance for a movie like Transformers to be nominated. Baumer said over at BOM that some friends of his at industry told him there will be a push to get it nominated..

I hope it does not even come into discussion. But the fact that there will be a push to get crap films nominated based on BO performance is really chilling.

It stands to reason that both The Princess and The Frog and Up, along with Michael's Moore documentary, and Star Trek will all be nominated together before Transformers 2. That's 2 animated films, Trek, and a documentary in the BP race together before Transformers 2.

I put its odds around 1%. So almost impossible.

I never listen to the friend of friends talk.

There's a better chance for The Hangover and Monsters Vs. Aliens BOTH getting nominated than TF2.

Up and a long shot of Trek and maybe Potter seem to be the only summer shots. I don't think Funny People looks good at all, frankly.

I'm starting to wane on Funny People. I think the marketing hasn't been very effective. Granted, it's going to do well because it's the third film from Judd Apatow. But I'm less confident in the quality of the film, though I do remember the early (6 months in advance) test screenings went very well.

Yeah Up and Star Trek have a very good shot (If the Academy decides that some of the additional 5 slots should go to popular films). Potter would be next with Funny People being a long shot.

It depends what the Academy uses the additional slots for. They may decide to reward an additional 2 well reviewed films + an animated (ie. Up) + a comedy (like the GGs) + a hugely popular or hip film.