Warner Bros.' space drama Gravity became an out-of-this-world box office hit when it opened in theaters in October. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron, the pic scored a stunning $55.8 million from 3,575 theaters, setting a new October opening weekend record. It surpassed Paranormal Activity 3's $52.6 million debut in 2011. It went on to pass the $400 million mark at the global box office to become October's highest grossing live-action film release of all time. It's earned $652.3 million worldwide to date.
Gravity became the first Dolby Atmos-mixed film (also mixed in 7.1) to win Oscars in the categories of sound mixing and sound editing.
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Dolby’s latest blog post salutes the work, and includes a video interview with Gravity helmer Alfonso Cuaron, who talks about the immersive sound format, which was introduced in 2012. During awards season, Cuaron had actually urged screenings to be scheduled in Atmos-equipped theaters.
The potential of immersive sound formats to excite moviegoers has been a topic of conversation in the cinema community.
“When you are able to have sound coming from every single place around you, it’s just like life,” Cuaron said in the blog post.
The honored sound mixing team included Chris Munro, who previously earned an Oscar for Black Hawk Down; and first-time winners Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri and Christopher Benstead. The Oscar for sound editing went to first-time winner Glenn Freemantle.
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Gravity won five additional Oscars for direction, score, editing, cinematography and visual effects.
Disney’s Frozen, which won Oscars for best animation feature and best original song, also received an Atmos mix.
E-mail: Carolyn.Giardina@THR.com
Twitter: @CGinLA
