Oscars Vs. Sales: What is Hollywood Thinking?

I am not a Hollywood insider, so I have no idea what Hollywood insiders are thinking. But I have noticed a disparity between what Hollywood considers great movies (Oscar Winners) and what the general public considers great movies (Top Box Office draws). So I decided to do a little research. My information sources were simple-- boxofficemojo.com for sales figures, and oscar.go.com for Oscar winner info.

I looked back over the past ten years: 2002-2011 for box office figures, and 2003-2012 for the corresponding Oscar winners. What I found was not surprising to me, but may be to some of you. First of all, all the top selling movies, except for Avatar in 2009 were part of a series (and I suspect there will be Avatar sequels), yet only one of the Oscar winners was part of a series. That movie, Lord Of The Rings: Return of the King was also the only movie in the last ten years to be the top selling film of the year (2003) and Oscar winner for best picture (2004). Before that Titanic in 97 & 98, Forrest Gump in 94 & 95 and Rain Man in 88 & 89 were the only top grossing movies to win best picture going back as far as boxofficemojo.com goes (1980). Now in the 80's I noticed a few of the best picture winners were at least in the top ten money makers, but that has certainly not been the case in the last decade.

I'm not going to give you the list of top money making film from the past ten years, but I am going to list the Oscar winning picture and tell you where they placed on the list of movies released during the year:
2002/2003: Chicago #10
2003/2004: Lord Of The Rings: Return of the King #1
2004/2005: Million Dollar Baby #24
2005/2006: Crash #49
2006/2007: The Departed #15
2007/2008: No Country For Old Men #36
2008/2009: Slum Dog Millionaire #16
2009/2010: The Hurt Locker #116
2010/2011: The Kings Speech #18
2011/2012: The Artist #85 (still in release, may place higher)

To me, I feel that these Oscar choices reflects Hollywood trying to say "look at the wonderful movies we can make, we are artist and so enlightened" and yet the things that seem to sell these days are action sequels or animated features. But if Hollywood were really concerned with making artist films and enlightened entertainment, couldn't they just stop making the fluff that sells, and only make the artistic films......No, money is still a central factor. Can't blame them.