BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted Tuesday to make another change to the nomination phase of the Best Picture competition. Anywhere from five to 10 films will now be nominated, and that number won’t be announced until January when the rest of the nominations are revealed.
The change comes just two years after increasing the number of nominees from five to 10.
“With the help of PricewaterhouseCoopers, we’ve been looking not just at what happened over the past two years, but at what would have happened if we had been selecting 10 nominees for the past 10 years,” said Academy President Tom Sherak.
After analyzing the data, Academy officials recommended that 5 percent of first place votes should be required in order to receive a nomination, which would result in five, six, seven, eight, nine or 10 Best Picture nominees per year..
“In studying the data, what stood out was that Academy members had regularly shown a strong admiration for more than five movies,” said Academy executive director Bruce Davis. “A Best Picture nomination should be an indication of extraordinary merit. If there are only eight pictures that truly earn that honor in a given year, we shouldn’t feel an obligation to round out the number.”
The 84th Annual Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. The ceremony will be broadcast by ABC.
