On Tuesday, the governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to change the nomination process for the Best Picture category. For years, the field was limited to 5 nominees but was expanded to 10 a few years ago. For the 2012 Oscars, there will be anywhere from 5 to 10 nominees and we won’t know how many films have been nominated until they are announced in January of next year.
AMPAS claims that Academy members have historically shown passion for more than five movies during the nomination process, but on average, not more than 7 or 8. The no longer feel an obligation to “round up” the number of nominees to 10.
Films that receive at least 5% first place votes among Academy members are eligible for Best Picture nomination. That’s fine, I guess. But does anyone else see this as giving the studios a greater opportunity to jockey for a nomination? Like, if studios get a sense that their critical darling (but financial dud) is hovering around 4%, won’t they push harder for swing votes? I see this as opening the door for more marketing and more campaigning that gets in the way of honestly recognizing films based on merit.
I guess I’m skeptical of it because it feels so shapeless. Almost as if the Academy is indifferent to the number of films that are nominated. “5 films, 6 films, 9 films… Hey! Whatever you want!”
Or worse, it feels like a contrived maneuver that will cause a lot of second guessing among Oscar-watchers. Which will result in more print articles trying to make predictions and more ink spilled covering potential confusion and controversy.
What is your take on this rule change? Leave your comments below!
I like it in theory. Some years there are more than five movies that deserve the recognition. Very rarely are there ten. This system allows for that variation. Had it been in place a few years back, The Dark Knight and WALL-E might have gotten nominations, while The Blind Side almost certainly wouldn’t have.
Of course, that’s the theory. It’ll be interesting to see how it works in reality.
Well, I think it’s better than the status quo. if you have seven or so really good pictures, but ten slots… you’re basically giving a bump to invalid movies who can then go out and say “Academy award nominated for best picture!” but are, in fact, complete dreck. The way things were headed, we might eventually have ended up with a Transformers movie slotted in there or something.
Frankly, I think they should go back to five. In most years, there is not really going to be more good movies than that. yeah, sure maybe once every few years you have an unusually strong field, but in general, you get five Best Picture contenders, five money maker movies that were good but not great, and five horrendous bombs… and then a field of “also released in 20xx” films.
at least that’s my humble opinnion
they should go back to 5 but they are not going to. so instead they should have 10 catagories and two awards. Best Picture and Almost Best Picture. (they can give a silver Oscar for Almost Best. Just like the Olympics.)
It is just to get more print on the paper (or links on the internet as the kids say these days) Movies are a moneygrab and it is just a way of shoring up the revenue stream. Now there can be 9 movies that have Acadamy Award Nominiated on the DVD box art.
But in the world of streaming video where will they print the award tags?
The world is changing faster than the Acadamy can follow.
Having 10 best picture nominees and only 5 directing and acting nominees was one of the stupidest things The Academy ever did. 7? Fine. Make all the marquee categories 7 nominations.
They should just have all the directors movies for a certain time period fight it out Thunderdome style. The last one standing gets the award for Best Picture.