We all know about the supposed relationship between box-office earnings and being nominated for Best Picture (i.e., not enough dough = forget it), but Pete Hammond has amended this thinking in a passage from his 12.28 Envelope/Notes on a Season column.

Director-screenwriter Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Gods and Monsters), who co-produced last year’s Academy Awards show, tells Hammond that “voters are more understanding” when it comes to low-earners like The Hurt Locker.

Kathryn Bigelow‘s film cost $11 million to make and has taken in a bit more than $12 million, but “I think the Academy is a lot more likely to forgive a movie like The Hurt Locker for its lack of big box office since they admire it and know it didn’t cost a lot to make in the first place,” Condon says.

Hammond seems to agree when he writes that “history shows the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences ‘& Money,’ as Mel Brooks once put it, is far more likely to deny Oscar glory to movies that cost a lot and turn out to be big box-office losers.”

In other words (and I hate to say this for Harvey Weinstein‘s sake), Nine?