The late Heath Ledger could be up for a posthumous Oscar in February for his performance in "The Dark Knight." Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

After this year’s Academy Awards, the question was whether the Oscars were still relevant, or if they were going the way of art galleries and modern dance, perceived as too elite and avant garde to appeal to the masses.

Of last year’s best picture nominees, none of them had cracked the Top 10 or $100 million mark at the box office.

Numerous reasons were cited, including studios obsessed with movies calculated to open big, art be damned, and the presence of boutique subsidiaries such as Paramount Vantage and Warner Independent Pictures to release “specialty” and “prestige” fare.

Well, the buzz is Oscar night 2009 may look quite different.

Not that we will suddenly see Harold and Kumar contending for best picture or anything like that.

But you could have Batman.

The late Heath Ledger, a 2006 best actor nominee for his performance in Brokeback Mountain, is seriously being talked about as a best actor possibility for his consumed-by-evil turn as The Joker in Batman: The Dark Knight.

Think that’s funny?

Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller, left) and Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr., right) are shooting an epic war movie and wind up in a real battle in “Tropic Thunder.” Photo by Merie Weismiller Wallace | DreamWorks.

A lot of people think that Robert Downey Jr. was brilliantly funny as a method actor who darkened his skin to play a black soldier in Ben Stiller’s Hollywood-bashing Tropic Thunder. Now, he’s a serious contender for a best supporting actor nomination for the box office hit that has made more than $110 million.

Dark Knight, also considered a best picture and director contender, as well as a shoe-in for numerous technical award nominations, now sits atop this year’s box office chart, and it’s likely to stay there. Why? For a while, during the summer, Dark Knight was threatening to overtake Titanic for the all-time box office record of $600 million, though with a home video release of the Batman movie set for Dec. 9, it appears that won’t happen.

Speaking of Titanic, the 1998 Oscar winner for best picture marked the last time the Oscars generated true mass hysteria, and its leading man and woman are back together this year. A Paramount Vantage offering with the downbeat plot of a crumbling 1950s marriage, Revolutionary Road isn’t likely to be all the rage with teenage girls like Titanic was. But it does have an intriguing A-list cast with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Other A-listers on short lists for Oscar contention include Brad Pitt, Clint Eastwood, Will Smith, Angelina Jolie and, seriously, Beyonce Knowles for her role in Cadillac Records. We should also mention that Lexington native Michael Shannon is getting buzz for Revolutionary Road.

This isn’t any concerted effort to help Oscar avoid going the way of the Tony Awards in terms of its national spotlight. But there are a few trends that may be boosting the awards’ star power and box office relevance this year and in years to come:

It’s the economy, stupid: If you’ve ever been around Hollywood, it’s hard to imagine expenses being spared. But they are, and they’re putting the squeeze on specialty shops and independent film, particularly in the distribution department.

According to a Nov. 6 Los Angeles Times story, the credit crunch is making it harder for filmmakers to find financing and for smaller and foreign distributors to purchase rights to films. Major studios are also either closing or curtailing their specialty arms. Warner Bros. closed down Warner Independent, which released films such as George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck, and Picturehouse earlier this year. So, the sources for the art house fare that was flooding the market – and the Oscars – a few years ago has shrunk.

On a more positive note: There’s more artistic ambition behind blockbusters these days.

The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan made his name with the art house hit Memento in 2000, and the film’s star, Christian Bale, became known as an actor before he was a movie star. This week, the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, opens with Oscar-winning writer Paul Haggis on the script and Oscar-nominated director Marc Forster behind the camera. With their recent outings, both the Bond and Batman franchises have gone from being regarded as essentially comic book fare to being taken seriously as drama.

It’s a trend that can be seen in other hits like Iron Man and recent efforts from Pixar Studios, which hopes to maybe get in the Best Picture race with Wall-E.

And it’s a trend that makes sense. If you can make a few hundred million bucks and win an Oscar, why not?