Indies to benefit from Oscar expansion

Hollywood's expansion of the Academy Awards best-picture nominations to 10 has opened the door wider for independents, creating even more competition for big-budget films that have been squeezed out in recent years.

The awards buzz picks up on December 15 when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announces its Golden Globe nominations, followed by the Screen Actors Guild on December 17. Critic favorites like Precious, about an abused inner-city teen, and the Iraq war thriller The Hurt Locker dominate early predictions for the February 2 Oscar finalists. Box-office hits including Viacom's Star Trek are lower on lists.

"It's the best thing that's ever happened for independent film at the Oscars," said Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, distributor of An Education, a small-budget film cited as an Oscar contender. It had taken in $6.27 million (Dh23m) in ticket sales as of December 6, according to Box Office Mojo, a film industry researcher.

The Oscars, produced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and televised by Walt Disney's ABC since 1976, give studios an extra chance to shower attention on nominated films. Movies that win, such as Fox's Slumdog Millionaire, get a marketing push and possibly an extended run in theatres.

The academy expanded the best-picture category from five in June so popular films might get more nominations and the telecast would draw more viewers and ads. The 2009 TV audience rose 13 per cent as the late Heath Ledger won a supporting-actor award for the Joker in The Dark Knight. The film, with $1 billion in global ticket sales, was not a best-picture nominee.

Bill Condon and Larry Mark, producers of last year's Oscars show, recommended the change after the last telecast, said Tom Sherak, President of the Beverly Hills, California-based academy. "We all looked at each other and said, 'Wow'. They said it would be good for the show, that it might broaden the audience," Sherak said.

Independent films may still garner the lion's share of best-picture nods, stealing attention from box-office leaders that could attract more viewers.

"It could backfire," said David Ansen, a Newsweek film critic and artistic director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. "How many of those big popular movies are contenders? Not many."

At the Los Angeles Times' The Envelope – an awards insider website – films leading Oscar predictions were Up in the Air, from Viacom's Paramount; Hurt Locker, distributed by Summit Entertainment; and Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.

Disney's Up, with $293m in US and Canadian receipts, is the only movie among the site's 10 leading contenders that is also Top 10 in ticket sales this year. Star Trek is in a seven-way tie for 16th. James Cameron's Avatar, which opens December 17 in the UAE, is No 11.

Precious has taken in $36.3m in the US for Lions Gate Entertainment. Hurt Locker has made $12.7m, according to Box Office Mojo. Up in the Air earned $1.19m in limited release its first weekend.

The Oscars drew their biggest audience in 1998, attracting 55.2m viewers when Cameron's Titanic, the all-time box-office leader, won best picture, according to ratings data from Nielsen.

Smaller-budget films have won best picture in four of the past five years, according to the academy website.

Slumdog Millionaire, the $15m movie from New York-based News Corp's Fox Searchlight, made $377.4m worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Up, an animated tale of an elderly man who realises his dream of world travel, is in the hunt, said Christine Birch, head of marketing at DreamWorks Studios, co-founded by Steven Spielberg. The movie has taken in $507m worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

Star Trek, from New York-based Viacom's Paramount Pictures, and the Time Warner comedy The Hangover, which took $459.4m in ticket sales, may have a chance, Birch said.

Up in the Air and News Corp's Avatar, a 3-D science-fiction film, are possibilities, said James D Stern, Chief Executive Officer of Endgame Entertainment, a California-based independent production company.

Stern was executive producer of An Education, which has taken in $6.55m worldwide. It was tied for seventh in The Envelope's survey of critics asked to pick likely nominees. That gives the producer a reason to cheer the expansion.

"You could argue that it's good for my film," Stern said. "If you were going to be one of the five and you knew it, you would rather not have 10."

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