"Lincoln" misses Oscar but tops box office

"Lincoln" may have missed the gong for Best Picture at Sunday's Academy Awards but it took home a handy consolation as the biggest box-office hit of the nine nominees.

Lincoln has accumulated 179 million U.S. dollars at the box office since its release in the North America last November, according to the Walt Disney Company.

The film, focused on the 16th American president's political struggle under a constitutional system, had all the makings of an Oscar favorite: political idealism, a fight against the odds, and one man's strong self belief; but in the end it lost out to Iran hostage thriller "Argo" for the Oscar.

"Lincoln" also gained the biggest number of nominations at this year's awards, 12, one more than ocean survival story "Life of Pi."

The Box office performance of the other eight nominees for Best Picture are: western "Django Unchained," 159 million dollars; mega-musical "Les Miserables," 147 million dollars; "Argo," 130 million dollars; Chinese director Ang Li's "Life of Pi," 114 million dollars; neurotic comedy "Silver Linings Playbook," 108 million dollars; hunt-for-Osama spy procedural "Zero Dark Thirty," 91.6 million dollars; surreal Louisiana Delta tale "Beasts of the Southern Wild," 12.5 million dollars; and French-language old-age drama "Amour," 5.2 million dollars.

The total revenue of the nine films is 940 million dollars. Enditem