Oscars Might Return to Five Best Picture Nominees

Posted by on March 5th, 2015   Filed under: Awards, Industry News
Source: THR

oscarsbacktofive

The Oscars took a hit in the ratings again this year, dropping 16% from 2014 and hitting their lowest mark since that notorious 2011 show when James Franco and Anne Hathaway co-hosted the ceremony. Of course, the continued decline means that the Academy is once again scrambling to find some way tweak the formula a bit and hopefully renew audience interest. This time around it appears that their first proposed change might actually be to cancel out an adjustment that they made back in 2009. For the past six years, the Best Picture category has included anywhere from five to ten nominees, which was itself an attempt to increase viewership by opening up the field a bit more. That didn’t really help, so now it looks like the Academy might be going back to the way things used to be.

According to THR, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is “seriously considering” a return to five nominees for Best Picture as early as next year. Although no official proposal is currently in place, it could happen later this month when the board of governors are next scheduled to meet. It is said that a significant portion of the board is pushing for a return to the five nominees because ten nominees has “watered down the prestige of a nomination.”

It’s true that the change hasn’t really boosted the TV ratings, but it did allow certain mainstream films to get a Best Picture nomination… movies like American Sniper, Inception and The Blind Side. But does it really matter if these movies do not actually have a shot at winning the award? Either way, it seems like more proof that the Academy really has no clue how to remain relevant. Do you think the Oscars should go back to five nominees for Best Picture or do you like the way it is now?



  • PlanBFromOuterSpace

    My problem is when they don’t have ten and there’s a movie in there that clearly doesn’t seem to belong, like “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” the one year. That makes me wonder what ones are missing, what could have filled a missing slot, more than if there were ten and that happened to be one of them. In that case, you can kind of go “Oh well, I guess they had to nominate ten”. Does that make any sense?

  • ECONOMYpolitica

    If this means The Dark Knight Rises wins best picture this year, I’m all for it!

  • Lior

    The way it is now is a total joke. It’s not even 10 nominees, it’s between 5-10 depending on votes, but every year there were 8 or 9 nominees. And every year there are no more than 5 films that actually have a chance, the rest is just for show. I didn’t like that change and I hope they get back to 5 nominees.

    But anyway, since when is the Oscars so concerned about ratings? What’s going on? It’s an award show for movies and the people who make them, you don’t wanna watch it, don’t watch it. That stupid rating thing is the main culprit behind not letting winners speak and rudely cutting them off with music, so that there’s more time for some more jokes or songs that supposedly boost ratings.

  • Rolf

    The problem is not the amount of nominees per category but the lack of surprise. If the Academy really wants to change sth. they should kick out all those old farts who certainly won’t watch every good movie. My guess is that most of them vote for their peers only anyway. Find more young folks to join the Academy. Maybe someday a movie like THE GUEST will sweep the Oscars. Would. Be. Awesome.

  • Anthony

    Simply changing the voter demographic won’t necessarily solve the issue of people not watching every movie or only voting for their peers. The issue of bias or personal preference likely won’t change if they go for a younger voting pool. They’d likely still vote for their peers as well, or just go by personal preferences which, honestly, is really what this thing is all about. Or should be about. If the 8-10 films that are nominated every year are nominated because the voting academy feels those were the best films, and I don’t agree, then that’s just a difference of opinion. No different then when a Twilight or other Young adult movie wins best movie at the MTV movie awards. But unfortunately there’s probably a bunch of politics behind it that it isn’t as simple as “these 8-10 movies were nominated because they were our favourite 8-10 films of the last year”