Aaron Sorkin

’s crime drama about the life of

Molly Bloom

, the woman convicted of organizing

underground high stakes poker games

has been nominated for an

Academy Award

in the

Best Adapted Screenplay

category.

Molly’s Game

hit theaters on

Christmas Day, December 25th

last year and was received with critical acclaim from the get-go. On the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes the movie holds an impressive

81% favorable rating

based on 205 professional reviews. Audience responses to the movie have also been

generally positive

.

Despite all that, Molly’s Game failed to bring in the big bucks in the box office, grossing

$41.1 million

as of now. Although that number is higher than the movie’s estimated

$30 million

budget please note that a big chunk of the revenue – as a rule of thumb, it’s usually calculated as

50%

– goes to the movie theaters; also, the marketing costs are not included in the production budget so overall the film most likely will be a net loss for STX Entertainment.

However, Molly’s Game is still very popular with movie experts: it is

among the five movies

nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 90th Academy Awards.

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin worked Molly Bloom’s 2014

autobiography

into an excellent movie script. Sorkin also took on the directorial duties of the film, a first-time experience for him, but as a screenwriter, he has a rich career behind him already. In fact, he has already won an

Oscar

in the category he’s nominated again this year – he took home the Best Adapted Screenplay award for the 2014 movie

The Social Network

.

Molly’s Game got a lot of the attention from the online poker press ever since it’s production was announced – this is the first big-budget

Hollywood

movie starring A-list talent about the game of poker since the 1998 release of

Rounders

.

Sorkin

sought out the help

of American poker pro

David Paredes

while working on the potentially Oscar-winning script, so the poker technicalities and jargon are on point in the movie – no wonder it’s embraced by the

online poker community

.

The 90th Academy Awards will be held on

March 4th

. By then we will know if Molly’s Game will succeed in taking home the title – it’s up against four other movies,

Call Me by Your Name, Logan, Mudbound

and

The Disaster Artist

.