Why did the Oscars switch to ten Best Picture nominees? Well, back in the day–the glory days; the Golden Age of Hollywood; whatever you want to call it–the Academy Awards were a much more inclusive thing. Until 1944, the Academy offered a selection of ten (10) nominees for Best Picture of the Year. They did this even through the harsh years of the Second World War, when times were tough and sacrifices had to be made all around.
In 1945, though, the Academy decided to slice the Best Picture field in half, and proffer a scant five selections. And this was the way we all grew up with the show: There were five nominees in every category, which meant we all had a 20% chance of picking correctly watching at home with our parents; and then, later in life, when we tried to win money from the office pool.
It was in 2009 that the Academy announced it was reverting back to its old, old, old-fashioned ways, and going wide for the Best Picture field. Nevermore would we have to deal with a mere five-spot: Ten was the new five, and we should all be grateful for that. At the time, MPAA President Sid Ganis was indeed grateful: “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,” he said. “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.”
The real question, then, is: Why? And the real answer, of course, is: Money. The Academy Awards show is often extremely long, and regularly mocked for that fact. It also struggled with something of a ratings decline during the first few years of the current century: viewership topped neither 40 million people nor 24% of all homes (the 2007 show came the closest), despite doing so regularly in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
And the Best Picture category had come to be seen as something of a critic’s showcase, with very few “popular” films making the cut. (“Popular,” for years, referred to a movie that made $100 million or more at the American box office.) The 2005 ceremony featured only two such films (Million Dollar Baby and The Aviator, both of which barely crossed the nine-figure threshold); 2006 had zero; 2007 just one (The Departed); 2008 another one (Juno); and 2009 another two (Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, both of which were more successful internationally than domestically).
Since 2009? The box office grosses are up, and so are the ratings. In 2010, at the first ceremony since the switch, fully half of the nominees–Avatar; The Blind Side; District 9; Inglorious Basterds; and Up–were box office hits, and three of those were among the top-grossing movies of the year. On average, each ceremony since the switch has had an audience boost measured not in the thousands, but in the millions. In fact, the ceremony coming up on Sunday here is the first not to feature multiple smash hits since the field was widened. So this might also be the year the ratings dip for the first significant time.
But enough about all that history and all those numbers. Who have you got picked to win the big one on Sunday? And, more importantly: How amazing do you expect Neil Patrick Harris’ performance as host to be? Legendary hosting job…or the legendariest hosting job?
(Photo credits:Why did the Oscars switch to ten Best Picture nominees via WENN)
