Academy Changes Its Rules…..Again

After expanding the number of eligible films for the Best Picture Oscar nominations to ten, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted last month to pull back on the earlier decision and allow “between five and 10 nominees in the 2011 Best Picture competition.” The original impetus for the expansion was to include more worthy films that would not necessarily win awards but where the Oscar nomination exposure would assist at the box office. It also was meant to expand the potential audience for the actual Oscar telecast by casting a wider net that would, in theory, include big budget Hollywood blockbusters that were often snubbed in the past. That has not happened, with the audience actually shrinking in the past year (although one might want to blame for that on the heads of the awards producers and its two comatose hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco). The actual number of Best Picture nominees will remain a mystery until the actual announcement in late January 2012.

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