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It took Batman to bring the Academy to its knees. Next year the 82nd annual Academy Awards will have ten Best Picture Nominees. You know whose fault that is? Batman's. Or rather last year's Batman movie, "The Dark Knight," starring Christian Bale and Academy Award winner Heath Ledger. Because Academy voters weren't hip enough to nominate the very worthy "Dark Knight" for Best Picture instead of say that hideously overrated "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," the Academy's gone off the deep cinematic end and decided to have ten Best Picture nominees next year.
Academy President Sid Ganis was quoted in the Academy's press release:
Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to 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. I can't wait to see what that list of ten looks like when the nominees are announced in February.
That means instead of just five movies with promotional campaigns that cost millions of dollars, there'll be ten. Film fanatics who want to see all the Best Picture nominees in the month between the nominations on February 2nd and the awards on March 7th will have to hustle. Late night talk shows will be inundated with twice the number of filmmakers and stars trying to plug their Oscar-bait.
But don't be fooled, dear movie buffs. As Julia Boorstin of CNBC's Media Money says, the "Oscar Increase, About the Money, Not the Movies:"
Though this is a throwback to the 1940s, when the Academy often nominated ten films, this isn't at all about history and sentimentality. It's all about revenues and driving eyeballs to watch the event. Over the past few years ratings for the big event have dropped, which means less ad
revenue for ABC [DIS 22.70 0.29 (+1.29%) ], which broadcasts the event, and lower broadcast fees for the Academy. The goal here is to get a bigger, broader moviegoing audience interested in the event by including films they've seen.
The last time a real blockbuster was nominated as Best Picture was "Titanic" and as Ms. Boorstin points out
It's no coincidence that 1998 when Titanic -- the biggest movie of all time-- won best picture, was the year the Oscars had the highest ratings ever.
The more people who are invested in the nominated movies, the higher the ratings for the Oscar telecast. If the Academy keeps nominating movies that only five people have seen, only those five people and a couple of fashionistas are going to watch.
"The Dark Knight" to date has made over 1 billion dollars worldwide and is number four on the all time worldwide box office list. Can you imagine the ratings of this year's ABC Oscar telecast if "The Dark Knight" had been nominated as Best Picture? They easily would have been through the roof.
So the Academy is thinking, not only will some blockbusters have the chance to get recognized with the newly minted five slots, but some comedies as well. We all know how allergic the Academy is to comedies. Even good comedies like, "Four Weddings and a Funeral," or "Austin Powers International Man Of Mystery" or "Thirteen Going On Thirty" or "Night at the Museum."
At first I ragged on the Academy like everyone else, saying this was a bad idea, but I've since changed my mind. I just think ten nominees is extreme. Six or eight would have been plenty, but I think they chose the number ten for the shock value alone. Honestly, it's hard enough for them to pick five decent movies in some years, much less ten.
Do we really want to see "Year One" nominated as Best Picture? Or "Scary Movie 7?" Or "Saw 6?" Okay, those last two I made up, but you get what I mean.
Meredith at Adverbial Warfare had the same thought:
Last weekend, we scanned the movie listings and there was not one single movie that we wanted to see, even at our independent/foreign movie house. We finally settled on Food, Inc., because at least we'd learn something. So, Hollywood, what's going to happen when you're churning out so many crap movies that you can't even muster 10 worthy flicks for the Academy's consideration, and then through a fluke split in the voting, The Hottie and the Nottie is walking away with the golden statue?
She breaks down the ten nominations this way:
I predict that
