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81st Academy Awards

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81st
DateSunday, February 22, 2009
SiteKodak Theatre
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hosted byHugh Jackman
Produced byBill Condon
Laurence Mark
Directed byRoger Goodman[1]
Television coverage
NetworkABC
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File:Nominedeannouncement2009.jpg
Sid Ganis and Forest Whitaker present the nominees for Best Picture at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

The 81st Academy Awards ceremony will honor its selection of the best films of 2008 and is scheduled for Sunday, February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. It will be televised in the United States on ABC. Australian performer Hugh Jackman is set to host the ceremony for the first time.[2] Academy Award-nominated producer Laurence Mark has been tapped to produce and Academy Award-winning writer/director Bill Condon to executive-produce. [3] The Curious Case of Benjamin Button leads the nominations with a total of 13. Slumdog Millionaire received ten, The Dark Knight and Milk received eight, and Doubt, The Reader, and Frost/Nixon each received five. The animated film WALL·E received six, tying it with Beauty and The Beast for the most nominated animated film in Oscar history.

Nominations

Main article: 81st Academy Awards nominees and winners

The nominees for the 81st Academy Awards were announced live on Thursday, January 22, 2009, at 5:38 a.m. PST (13:38 UTC)[4] by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Sid Ganis and Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in the Academy's Beverly Hills headquarters.[5] The winners are to be announced during the awards ceremony scheduled to take place on February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. Jerry Lewis will be honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.[6]

Continuing a trend in recent years, the field of major nominees did not include a bona fide blockbuster at the U.S. box office, with all but one of the nominees for Best Picture performing even more poorly than those of the previous year. In fact, "The Dark Knight" earned more money than all the Best Picture nominees combined in its first four days of release. However, the top money earner in this year's field of Best Picture nominees performed slightly better in box office receipts compared to last year's highest grossing Best Film nominee, Juno. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees with $104.4 million in domestic box office receipts (compared to Juno which grossed $87 million prior to its nomination). The film was followed by Slumdog Millionaire which earned $44.7 million, Milk with $20.7 million, and Frost/Nixon with $8.8 million. The Reader rounded out the Best Picture nominees with $8.3 million.

Among the rest of the top 50 releases of 2008 in U.S. box office before the nominations, 32 nominations went to 8 films on the list. Only The Dark Knight (1st), WALL-E (5th), Kung Fu Panda (6th), Bolt (19th), Tropic Thunder (20th), and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (21st) received nominations for best picture, directing, acting, or screenwriting. The other top-50 box office hits that earned nominations were Iron Man (2nd), and Wanted (16th). The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, WALL-E, and Wanted each received more than two nominations.

For the first time since 2004, two films received more than eight nominations. Slumdog Millionaire received ten nominations and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button received 13.

For the fourth consecutive year, four of the Best Picture nominees were rated R (under 17 requires accompanying adult). Of the 86 nominations awarded to non-documentary feature films (apart from the Foreign Film category), a majority of 46 went to R-rated films (down from 50 one year earlier), 35 to films rated PG-13 (up from 29 the previous year), two to PG-rated films (down from 4 the year before) and eight to a G-rated film (up from five from last year). Duplicating the rating-related division among the nominations for the past three years, R-rated films captured 27 of the 40 nominations for Best Picture, directing, screenwriting and acting; while non-R-rated films received 25 of the 43 nominations in the remaining categories, primarily those in "below the line" areas.

Controversy

Following the nominations announcement, the Academy was accused of deliberately snubbing WALL-E, The Dark Knight, Revolutionary Road, Doubt, and The Wrestler, five critically praised films that were considered contenders for nominations in the five major categories. As a result, Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay nominations for the film were widely expected. The appartent snubbing of films is expected to translate into low viewership on Oscar night [citation needed] . It was also accused of snubbing Sally Hawkins for Best Actress in Happy Go Lucky, Ben Kingsley for Best Supporting Actor in The Wackness, and Andrew Stanton and Christopher Nolan as Best Director for WALL-E and The Dark Knight respectively [7][8] as well as the omission of Bruce Springsteen from the Best Song category, for his song from The Wrestler which took the 2009 Golden Globe Award.

Schedule

As of January 15, 2009[9]
Date Event
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 Official Screen Credits forms due
Friday, December 26, 2008 Nominations ballots mailed
Monday, January 12, 2009 Nominations polls close 5:00 p.m. PST (01:00, 13 Jan. UTC) (8:00 p.m. EST)
Thursday, January 22, 2009 Nominations announced 5:38 a.m. PST (13:38 UTC) (8:38 a.m. EST) at Samuel Goldwyn Theater
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 Final ballots mailed
Monday, February 2, 2009 Nominees Luncheon
Saturday, February 7, 2009 Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards presentation
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 Final polls close 5:00 p.m. PST (01:00, 18 Feb. UTC) (8:00 p.m. EST)
Sunday, February 22, 2009 81st Annual Academy Awards presentation

See also

References

  1. ^ "Roger Goodman Named Director for 81st Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 24 October 2008. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
  2. ^ "Hugh Jackman to Host 81st Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 12 December 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
  3. ^ "Mark and Gordon to Guide 81st Oscar telecast". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 24 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
  4. ^ "Coming Soon". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 21 January 2009.
  5. ^ "Forest Whitaker to Join Academy President Sid Ganis for Oscar Nominations". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 20 January 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2009.
  6. ^ "Honorary Awards". oscar.com. Retrieved 21 January 2009. {{cite news}}: More than one of |work= and |website= specified (help)
  7. ^ Bandyk, Matthew (2009-01-22), Academy Awards Controversy: Wall-E Gets Snubbed For Best Picture Oscar, U.S. News & World Report, retrieved 2009-01-22 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  8. ^ Academy accused of snubbing Dark Knight, Wall-E, ABC News, 2009-01-22, retrieved 2009-01-22
  9. ^ "Key Dates Announced for the 81st Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 14 April 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-21.

Official websites

News resources

Analysis

Other resources

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