The guy you see in the image above is Sid Ganis, he’s the president of the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and he’s announced today that next year, at the 82nd Oscars, there will be 10 nominees for Best Picture category instead of the usual 5.
“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.”
“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,”
“I can’t wait to see what that list of ten looks like when the nominees are announced in February.”
I know what you’re thinking… this decision maybe was motivated by the fact that some thought it was unfair The Dark Knight wasn’t nominated for Best Picture at the last Oscars.
Or maybe this is just a strategy to adapt to this crappy economy.. that they just want to have more nominees so the award show can get even longer, allowing more ads that bring in money.
Of course, they’ll never admit to those assumptions of mine.
AMPAS actually had more than 5 nominees in its early years. For 9 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.
Do you think making it 10 contenders would give it a fair playing field? Does this mean Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince might get a chance or Pixar’s UP might be recognized in this category instead of just Best Animated feature? Or is this strategy too…overwhelming?
The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, February 2. The ceremony honoring films for 2009 will again take place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network on on March 7th, 2010
