June
24
Academy Adds Five Slots to Best Picture Category
I am stunned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences decision to nominate ten films for the best picture Oscar. The reason is obvious. Given that the annual show is designed to showcase and promote the movie industry, boosting the number of films will broaden the show's appeal. The broadcast has suffered drops in viewers when the best picture winner isn't Titanic or Lord of the Rings.
This way, clearly, a mass-appeal movie with great reviews like The Dark Knight, which was close to landing a spot in the top five, would be included. Moviegoers pay less attention to movies that are nominated in the technical categories.
What worries me about this is that ten is less exclusive than five. And given the limited number of quality movies that Hollywood is making, it may be hard to come up with a decent list. Also, this brings the Oscar show closer to the Broadcast Film Critics Awards or The Golden Globes, which nominates five comedy/musicals and five dramas.
Last year, for example, the top ten best picture Oscar list would have looked something like this:
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Milk
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
The Dark Knight
Wall-E
Doubt
The Wrestler
The Changeling or Gran Torino
This raises many questions; I am canvassing various distribs, Oscar campaigners and marketing folks. I'll report back at the end of the day. Let me know what you think. Is this a good or a bad thing?
82nd Academy Awards® to Feature 10 Best Picture Nominees
Beverly Hills, CA (June 24, 2009) — The 82nd Academy Awards, which will be presented on March 7, 2010, will have 10 feature films vying in the Best Picture category, Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis announced today (June 24) at a press conference in Beverly Hills.
“After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year,” said Ganis. “The final outcome, of course, will be the same – one Best Picture winner – but the race to the finish line will feature 10, not just five, great movies from 2009.”
For more than a decade during the Academy’s earlier years, the Best Picture category welcomed more than five films; for nine years there were 10 nominees. The 16th Academy Awards (1943) was the last year to include a field of that size; “Casablanca” was named Best Picture. (In 1931/32, there were eight nominees and in 1934 and 1935 there were 12 nominees.)
Currently, the Academy is presenting a bicoastal screening series showcasing the 10 Best Picture nominees of 1939, arguably one of Hollywood’s greatest film years. Best Picture nominees of that year include such diverse classics as “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Stagecoach,” “The Wizard of Oz” and Best Picture winner “Gone with the Wind.”
“Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize,” commented Ganis. “I can’t wait to see what that list of ten looks like when the nominees are announced in February.”
The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, February 2. The Oscar® ceremony honoring films for 2009 will again take place at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network.
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Is this not about advertising in some sense? More films can claim to be nominated? However, there have been years when the nominees slate simply had no space for all deserving films. Why not just make it more flexible? Suppose there really aren't ten films of Oscar quality?
Posted by: RGM | June 24, 2009 at 12:49 PM
Dumb. True, deserving movies get left out now, but that won't change, even with ten. Five is a nice number, easy for us non-business types to track and hopefully see. It has a certain symetry, rather like best out of seven in the World Series.
Posted by: mitkid | June 24, 2009 at 01:26 PM
This is most definitely a bad thing. It would be one thing if the argument for changing the number of films nominated from five to ten was the inability to pick just five. This however is not the case, the Academy just wants to nominate more popular films as a way of drawing in more viewers.
Posted by: Jordan | June 24, 2009 at 01:33 PM
Does this mean that getting a best picture nomination is now half as prestigious as it used to be?
Posted by: Crow T Robot | June 24, 2009 at 04:23 PM
This might -- might -- have been feasible back in the 1970s, but I just don't think it's appropriate at this time. Five is plenty. It's better to strive for excellence than to water down the category, which is almost certain to happen.
Posted by: Griff | June 24, 2009 at 04:36 PM
I think this is ridiculous. It's like baseball before and after steroids. "Yeah, we got a nomination when there was only five slots," suits will brag. It will be the beginning of the end for the Oscars. Forget IMAX, this is the film industry's New Coke.
Posted by: Ryan Sartor | June 24, 2009 at 04:40 PM
Insipid, to say the least -- it's such an obvious pander to include top box office films that aren't critical favorites. I can't remember the last year when there were actually ten pictures worth considering (maybe the early 70s?). It's hard enough to name five at the end of the year -- and 2009 so far is no banner year, n'est-ce pas?
Posted by: Godfather | June 24, 2009 at 04:47 PM
Potentially with a ten like that Slumdog may not have won because votes would have gone to the other films. It seems only a real obvious odds on favorite will win now. If the odds are even it can go either way for the ten films now.
Posted by: MattL | June 24, 2009 at 09:55 PM
If they want to get people to watch/care they should follow the "idol" model and have folks vote online during the show...no brainer kids today live via the phone and online voting is a natural progression. The Academy needs to get with the times and stop watering down the competition, but then I guess it is all about ratings and not about the awards anymore...those awards won't mean much anymore, and nobody will care to watch... nice job!
Posted by: Ranxerox | June 26, 2009 at 10:54 AM
There are several commercial reasons for the change, described here:http://www.newsy.com/videos/oscars_and_then_there_were_ten
But I am concerned about how this will effect voting, with more contenders a film can win with a smaller percentage of the vote.
Posted by: Rosa | June 29, 2009 at 11:23 AM