Feb. 27 has been chosen as the date for the 77th Annual Academy Awards. Next year's Oscar ceremonies will take place on the last Sunday of February, the same relative spot on the calendar where this year's 76th Annual Academy Awards were set. As happened this year, the show, to be broadcast by ABC, is expected to take place during the February ratings period. In effect, the 2005 Oscar calendar duplicates the same accelerated schedule that the Academy experimented with for the first time this year. "I think people were surprised by how much they didn't dislike the new schedule," Academy spokesman John Pavlik said. "This year was sort of abnormally smooth. It certainly seemed to work better than we had feared. I think people did like the earlier schedule, and they liked the fact that it was all over (earlier in the year)." Under next year's schedule, nomination ballots will be mailed Monday, Dec. 27, and nominations polls will close at 5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15, 2005. The nominations will be announced at 5:30 a.m. PST on Tuesday, Jan. 25. Final ballots will be mailed Feb. 2 and due back at the Academy by Feb. 22. Next year, the nominations mailings are officially set for Dec. 27, the first Monday after the Christmas holiday weekend. That move is expected to put pressure on distributors to release their Academy hopefuls earlier than the year-end dates that have been favored in the past.
The ring, the central totem in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, proved all powerful Sunday night at the 76th Annual Academy Awards as the film was hailed as best picture and Peter Jackson was crowned best director. King's triumphant processional proved to be a rout as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bowed before the third installment in Jackson's epic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels. It swept all 11 categories in which it was nominated, immediately finding a place in the record books alongside Titanic and Ben-Hur, the only other films ever to earn 11 Oscars. It also was the biggest sweep ever in Oscar history; the previous record holders were 1987's The Last Emperor and 1958's Gigi, both of which went nine for nine. New Line Cinema's King -- which already has earned more than $1 billion worldwide -- virtually had the show to itself, save for the main acting honors, which went to Sean Penn, for his distraught father in Mystic River, and Charlize Theron, for her embittered serial killer in Monster.
Five seconds might not amount to a lot of time considering that the 76th Annual Academy Awards broadcast is expected to run 3 1/2 hours when it airs Feb. 29 on ABC. But ABC's insistence on using a five-second tape delay has angered Frank Pierson, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In a letter to the Academy's membership, he warned that a delay, which has not been used before on an Oscar show, could be the first step on a slippery slope that "introduces a form of censorship." Although the Academy's board of governors refused last week to endorse ABC's request to use a tape delay, the Academy admits that the decision ultimately rests in ABC's hands. And, in the wake of the fallout that followed Janet Jackson's breast-baring on CBS' broadcast of the Super Bowl, ABC intends to use a tape delay for the Oscar show.
- 2/11/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This year's Oscar nominees have been instructed to keep their speeches short on the big night, during a glitzy Los Angeles luncheon with the producer Joe Roth. The America's Sweethearts director was joined by contenders such as Diane Keaton, Charlize Theron, Sean Penn and Tim Robbins at the Beverly Hills Hotel for the traditional bash - and during the star-studded event, Roth took the opportunity to request restraint from the potential winners. He told the assembled nominees, "One of the uncomfortable realities of the awards process is that Oscar night is all about the winners, but today is all about the nominees. Enjoy the night. I think it's going to be a fast, funny, beautiful show." The 76th Academy Awards will take place on 29 February at Los Angeles' Kodak Theatre.
- 2/11/2004
- WENN
The ballots are in the mail. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that it mailed nomination ballots to its 5,803 voting members Monday. But the seemingly routine announcement caught some Academy campaigners off guard. In April, when the Academy first devised its accelerated schedule for the 76th Annual Academy Awards -- which will be held Feb. 29, a month earlier than has been customary -- it said that nomination ballots would be mailed Friday, Jan. 2. The Academy's own Web site, www.oscars.org, still lists Jan. 2 as the date when the ballots will be mailed. However, according to Academy spokesman John Pavlik, the Academy revised the mailing date in August, when it issued its annual update of its rules book. "The calendar included in the rules book has Dec. 29 as the mailing date," Pavlik said. "When we originally chose Jan. 2, no one realized we would be closed on Friday, so we amended that in August. I guess not everybody noticed we'd made a change."...
- 12/30/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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