BREAKING: Oscar’s Best Picture Nominees Will Expand to Ten

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has just announced in a small blurb the Oscars this year will be bumping their Best Picture nominees from five to ten beginning with the upcoming 2010 Oscars President Sid Ganis announced today at a press conference in Beverly Hills.

“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,” said Ganis. “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 move is an obvious response to the recent discussion concerning The Dark Knight‘s absence from the nominees for more art house style films such as The Reader and I would expect we can now look at Up as a serious contender for a Best Picture nominee when previous Pixar favorites Ratatouille and WALL-E were left in the cold.

“Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize,” commented Ganis. “I can’t wait to see what that list of ten looks like when the nominees are announced in February.”

Personally I am not sure what I think about the move as it obviously cheapens the category, but then again I guess it will all but eliminate the complaining. This also means my year-end predictions will now be more about predicting slots 8-10 than 1-5. Could be interesting… We’ll have to wait and see. What are your thoughts on it?

The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, February 2. The Oscar ceremony honoring films for 2009 will again take place at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood on March 7, 2010, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network.

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