Funny thing about the Academy Awards: Just one little gold stature can change a tiny art house picture that was made for $5 and crew lunches into a multimillion-dollar monster.

Take last year’s winner for Best Picture at the event. The King’s Speech was put together for around $15 million by Bedlam Productions, See-Saw Films and with funding from the UK Film Council. The Weinstein Company then put it out and made $414 million on international box office. It ain’t exactly exactly the $2.7 billion Avatar made for News Corp.’s (NASDAQ:NWSA) 20th Century Fox, but that’s still a big windfall — all thanks to the hype brought on by one award.

The Best Picture competitors for the 84th Annual Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday. Who’s going to profit for the win? And the nominees are …