Academy To Likely Decrease The Number of Best Picture Nominees

Is ten too many?  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences thinks so.  A few years ago if you remember, the Academy doubled the number of Best Picture Nominees from five to ten to make a few more spots available for more mainstream films as well as indie flicks.  From a marketing standpoint, it's actually great because studios get to sell more DVDs when they're able to say that the film was nominated for Best Picture.  But starting next year, the number of nominees will be anywhere between five to ten depending on the distribution of votes for top films.  Obviously, if the nomination votes are evenly distributed you're likely to see ten films but if they are bubbling up to two or three films, you'll only see five films nominated. 

Personally, I think this is a bad move.  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences needs to help sell more DVDs and increase the revenues of the industry more than ever and decreasing the number of nominations is not going to help.  Purely, from a business standpoint this is a bad move and believe me, the Academy is a bigger part of the movie business than you'd think.  I understand they are not in it for the money, and whatever but they'll have to play ball with the studios if they want to improve their own brand.  It's just simple math.  Less people watching movies equals less people who give a s#it about what the Academy has to say.  Just my $0.02

Comments

[J.Bradley]

Okay then, so some years will be lesser, bigger - whatever than others. I kinda' wondered when this was coming 'cause there's just too many superhero and family fun-night movies and not the "traditional" Oscar movies until the end of the year - and sometimes even THEY fizzle out, so it was eventual that the number of nominees would HAVE to fluctuate. I think it's interesting that they've just officially admitted to it and plan to adjust rather than scramble to fill those 10 slots.