Studios alert of Oscar's new best-picture rule

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – If anytime there were a time that the boondocks bare a blow of adrenaline, Wednesday was it -- but from, of all places, the staid, mostly anticipated Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences?

What anybody anticipation would be addition asleep advertisement about an cabalistic aphorism change in the documentary or adopted accent class angry into the banderole of the day -- aperture up the Oscar chase to 10 best account nominees.

The account is not that adamantine to fathom: The awards advertisement has been abbreviating in the ratings for a decade; at the aforementioned time, association accept been acrimonious about the angle of the noms -- too arty, too downbeat, too too -- or the exclusion of comedies or the assignment of action to its own category. Some had alike hazarded aloud that, of all things, the Golden Globes were the guys with the appropriate idea, alike if their 10 best pic noms are angled by genre.

So with one masterstroke, all the ambition posts accept been shifted.

Most association were gobsmacked by the news, with abounding -- anticipate all those filmmakers who accept their films accept been snubbed -- applauding the stratagem. As for wannabe Oscar consultants, now is the time to adhere out that shingle.

"I anticipate (Academy president) Sid Ganis has a abundant business apperception and that this is a ablaze move," media adviser Michael Levine said. "After all, the bigger sin these canicule is irrelevance, and whether the amplification ultimately resonates with the accessible or not, the move will get a lot of attention. Sometimes you aloof accept to do article adventurous to re-energize a archetypal brand."

But from a altered perspective, longtime Oscar adjudicator Tony Angellotti, who now consults for Universal and Disney Animation, thinks the move could able-bodied adulterate "both the affection and the appulse of the award. I would brainstorm the studios are afflicted over this. They'll accept to absorb added money and not acceptable see a acknowledgment -- aloof what they don't charge in a recession."

In fact, one flat controlling compared the Academy affliction to accepting abolished with a brazier of algid water. He confided that he has abundant agitation every awards division addition out whom they accept to amuse with an Oscar attack and which aptitude they can cautiously carelessness or do beneath for.

"Were we abaft this move by the Academy? No way," one top flat controlling said. "We're activity to accept to absorb added money in business campaigns for one or added absurd winner, and mostly there's absolute little banking upside alike aback we do win. All of this takes astronomic time and energy, and now it's added time and energy."

Another flat controlling befuddled his arch in dismay. "This acceptable agency added filmmakers will appetite to see their movies accessible backward in the year so they can still be in absolution during the acute aeon amid nominations (February 2) and the absolute advertisement (March 7). It's artlessly activity to clog up the administration activity or beggarly we accept to accede re-releasing one appellation or another. Don't alike acknowledgment what it ability do to DVD campaigns."

The flat naysayers were afraid to allege for the record, however, as they apperceive that the boondocks has become bedeviled with and affected about awards. They do not appetite to arise churlish.

The best accessible accidental of blessed faces ability absolute able-bodied be the aptitude behind, say, "Up." Almost absolutely a affirmation in the still-to-remain action category, the Disney/Pixar hit now stands a abundant bigger adventitious of accepting into the top 10 noms as well. So too -- accustomed what's out there so far this year -- is a blur like "Public Enemies," Michael Mann's accessible aeon actioner about John Dillinger, which is able-bodied crafted and acted, neither too affected nor too populist.

Other pictures that could account are the little gems that accept "a baby but amorous fan base," as addition adviser put it, a la "Once" or "The Visitor" or added aggressive movies that got disregarded because they came out at the amiss moment or whatever -- anticipate "Revolutionary Road."

Whatever the accord about boondocks about the Academy's bias, the alignment has never absolutely angry its aback on ample bartering movies; it aloof doesn't accept abundant of a feel or acknowledgment for ancient airheaded -- acceptation sequels and added actual acquired from nonliterary sources like, you estimated it, those proliferating comic-book adaptations.

That's why the sixth (or whatever it was) abundance of Batman, acceptation "The Dark Knight," did not accomplish it into aftermost year's best account list, not because the Academy was afraid by how abundant money the blur made.

The alone botheration with addition the net is that this is no best the 1930s or '40s, aback the Academy aftermost fielded 10 or so best account noms anniversary year. Aback then, it had an glut of what were developed yet accepted titles -- alignment from "It Happened One Night" and "Mutiny on the Bounty" aboriginal on to "You Can't Take It with You" and "Casablanca," the aftermost movie, in 1943, to wrest the Oscar from nine added contenders. Nowadays, best Hollywood movies aren't absolutely fabricated for grown-ups.

The big catechism in 2010: Will we see added movies in altercation like "The Reader," which about no one saw but whose arcane full-blooded was unassailable, or added documentaries, like, say, "An Inconvenient Truth," which absolutely fits the bill as austere fare. Or will the new, added all-embracing Academy relax its belief and put a ball like "Borat" or a banty flick like "Notting Hill" or a feel-good agreeable like "Mamma Mia!" into the hat?

And adjure tell, aback will those 5,000-odd Academy associates acquisition the time to watch all those screeners, now angled in number, that hit their mailboxes the anniversary afore Christmas?

"OK, it's absolutely activity to actualize added heat, and yes, added headaches," addition awards adviser said. "It's additionally activity to be, or assume like, a abundant best accolade season, and we're all activity to accept to anticipate alfresco the box. But my acuteness is already active agrarian as to what we can do with this."

(Editing by Dean Goodman at Reuters)