Cannes: Competition Movies Divide Critics; How Much Do The … 
Record-Breaking Memorial Weekend 2013! ‘Fast & … 
SAG-AFTRA Sued For Witholding Foreign Residuals And … 
Zach Braff Ends $3+M Kickstarter Campaign 
Fox Unscripted TV Czar Mike Darnell To Exit 
NBC Sets Oklahoma Tornado Benefit Concert For May 29 
Cannes: Directors’ Fortnight Honors ‘Les … 
SHOCKER: Tom Cruise Exits ‘Man From … 
A+E Rebuild: BBC’s Jana Bennett To Run Bio And LMN … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Hannibal’ Hits Low, … 
‘Katie’ Shakeup: Rachel Miskowiec Replaces … 
Hammond On Cannes: French Hero Jerry Lewis On His Return To … 
Cannes: Another Jewelry Heist? $2.6M Necklace Missing After … 
Hammond On Cannes: Leo DiCaprio’s Moon Trip Tops … 
Specialty B.O. Preview: ‘Before Midnight’, … 
2012-2013 Season Network Rankings: CBS Sweeps In Final … 
Full 2012-2013 TV Season Series Rankings 
TOLDJA! Paramount Pocketing $190M From Disney For Marvel … 
‘Good Morning America’ Hits 19-Year Viewership … 
MGM Buys ‘Modern Family’ Producer Ben … 
‘Fashion Police’ Writers Chant On Picket Lines: … An insider tells me that, at the most recent and always secret Academy Of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences‘ Board Of Governors meeting, president Hawk Koch ”went around the room asking if ‘anybody is friends with Nikki Finke?’ before beginning”. Gotta say, Hawk made my day.
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Ric Robertson Taking Paid Summer Hiatus From Movie Academy In Financial Crunch
EXCLUSIVE: Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences COO Ric Robertson is taking what’s being internally 
called a “sabbatical” from June through August. I have learned this is an unusual paid leave even though the Academy is complaining about a financial crunch. Normally, its staff are restricted to 30 days of unpaid leave (and then only with approval). “He has worked here for 31 years. Doesn’t he deserve it?” an insider told me. “He didn’t tell us what he’ll do. Maybe work on his golf game.” Robertson’s upcoming sabbatical has prompted AMPAS staff to wonder whether he will be pushed out and/or look for another job. In April 2011, he was passed over for Bruce Davis’ executive directorship and now reports to AMPAS CEO Dawn Hudson, who was brought in over him. Insiders tell me that Robertson was primarily responsible for this year’s online voting debacle, which Hudson dumped in his lap when the Academy finally decided to implement Oscar balloting electronically — something Robertson and Davis resisted for prior years. (Grumbles one insider: “Dawn gives him anything messy that she doesn’t want to deal with or anything that means a lot of real work or anything that has a potential for failure, like the electronic voting.”) Read More »
Academy Meeting A Hit Say Hudson, Hawk – But What Did Members Think?
Today’s first-ever Academy membership meeting was deemed a success by both Acad President 
Hawk Koch and CEO Dawn Hudson, as well as a random sampling of several members with whom I spoke immediately following. Certainly the turnout was stellar with the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theatre (which has about 1000 seats) nearly full with members only (no guests) which Koch told me was the first time since it was built that the audience was near-SRO with only Academy members. Koch says New York and Bay Area venues were also well-attended which bodes well for continuing this as an annual event. “On a scale from one to ten, I give it a twelve”, said Koch who according to several attendees I talked to got lots of plaudits from those who asked questions in the audience. ”We’ll hear from our members. But in that room there was a lot of love for this event. I don’t think there has ever been an occasion where we just invited members. It was historic in that way. This kind of came out of the branch mixers we have done, and people asked about doing something cross-branches which was sort of the impetus for this meeting”, Hudson told me in a joint call with Koch shortly after the 12:35PM (PT) conclusion of the event. Read More »
Academy Announces New Rule Changes At Membership Meeting; All Members Can Now Vote On Foreign Language Films
The Academy announced rule changes that will allow all members for the first time to vote in all 24 categories including Foreign Language and Documentary Shorts, either via theatrical screenings or DVD. Previously members had to attend special screenings for … Read More »
2013 Student Academy Awards Finalists
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – Thirty-eight students from 17 U.S. colleges and universities as well as nine students from foreign universities have been selected as finalists in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Student Academy Awards competition. Winners will be brought to Los Angeles for a week of industry activities and social events that will culminate in the awards ceremony on Saturday, June 8, at 7:30 p.m. in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
The finalists are (listed alphabetically by film title):
Alternative
“Beyond the Spheres,” Meghdad Asadi Lari, Rochester Institute of Technology
“Bottled Up,” Rafael Cortina, Occidental College
“Bye Hyungjik,” Hyungjik Lee, Florida State University
“The Compositor,” John Mattiuzzi, School of Visual Arts
“File Not Found,” Maria Sequeira, University of Southern California
“The Pirate of Love,” Sara Gunnarsdottir, California Institute of the Arts
“Zug,” Perry Janes, University of Michigan
Mike Myers & Dana Carvey Use Academy To Bury ‘Wayne’s World’ Hatchet
AMPAS President Hawk Koch tonight used the Academy as a promo tool for the 1992 comedy which he exec produced 21 years ago. Wayne’s World has zero to do with prestigious Academy functions, but a rep told me similar screenings are in the works to attract a new audience to AMPAS. Tonight’s event sold out in 90 seconds at $5 a pop.
With Saturday Night Live boss Lorne Michaels (who produced the pic) Koch wrangled stars Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, and director Penelope Spheeris to the event following years of tensions between the trio. In a pre-film panel at the Academy’s Wilshire theater, moderator Koch skirted the infamous squabbles surrounding the Wayne’s World shoot. Those include Myers’ reputed difficult on-set demands. And reports that he Myers and Carvey had fallen out after Myers lifted his Dr. Evil voice from Carvey. Spheeris meanwhile has accused Myers of vetoing her as the sequel’s director because she didn’t listen to his edit requests. (“‘I hated that bastard for years”, she said in a 2008 interview.) No questions were allowed from the at-capacity audience. And the panelists were explicitly instructed not to talk to press at the event. Read More »
Oscars Producers: Hawk Koch’s Chutzpah Tops Even Tom Sherak’s
Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences president Hawk Koch broke today’s news naming its 86th Academy Awards producers — a rerun of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron – because I’d received a tip this morning and was … Read More »
BREAKING: Academy Reruns Craig Zadan & Neil Meron As 86th Oscars Producers
BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The acclaimed motion picture, television and theater producing team of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will return to produce the Oscars for a second time next year, Academy President Hawk Koch announced. The
Academy Gives Details Of Its May Membership Meeting
As reported here Sunday the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is having an unprecedented membership meeting 
and sent out a save-the-date notice for Saturday, May 4th for Los Angeles-, New York- and Bay Area-based members to attend, have conversations and ask questions about “The Future Of Our Academy”. Today the official invite goes out (check it out below) and lifts the veil on exactly what topics will be covered and why the organization is attempting to do this. As Academy CEO Dawn Hudson explained to me this morning, it is an idea whose time has come. “It’s an idea that many members have talked about to me and to the board. The board has brought it up too. We just felt the time was right now. We talked about doing it I guess since last fall,” she said, adding that the Academy has been hosting individual branch get-togethers and, because of positive reaction, members told her they would like to do something across all branches. So this larger meeting idea was hatched.
Hudson said they needed to wait until the Oscars were over and that no subject is off the table. But on the invite highlighted topics include the new museum, programming, new collections, new technology and other areas like the controversial introduction to e-voting initiated for the first time this past Oscar season. “E-voting was quite successful and we will do a little recap for our members. But really this is to give an overview of what’s coming up in the future”, she said. “This is my mantra. It is what the Academy is doing the other 364 days of the year, and when you talk about those things directly it is quite impressive. Read More »
Oscars: What Is The Academy’s Unprecedented Membership Meeting Really All About?
Speculation has been swirling this Easter holiday weekend in the media and among Academy types just exactly what the Save The Date for the “special event” the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences just sent out to their members (in an email from … Read More »
R.I.P. Fay Kanin
Fay Kanin, Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning screenwriter and former President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, died today at the age of 95. A New York native, Kanin began her showbiz career in the … Read More »
Entry Deadlines For 2013 Student Academy Awards Approaching
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – The deadlines to submit entries for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 2013 Student Academy Awards competition are Friday, March 22 (Foreign Film category), and Monday, April 1 (all other categories).
AMPAS-Funded Projects Include Study On Studio Corporate Mergers
With the 85th Oscars in the history books The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has gotten back to doing what
it does the other 364 days of the year. The organization held its annual lunch Monday honoring the $25,000 … Read More »
Academy Sets Film Scholar Grant Recipients, Foreign Movie Book Event
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – The collaborative process between directors and cinematographers and an exploration of Hollywood during the age of mergers and acquisitions will be the topics explored by Dr. Christopher Beach and Dr. Thomas Schatz, respectively, who have been named the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 2012 Academy Film Scholars. The Academy’s Educational Grants Committee, which selected Beach and Schatz on the basis of their manuscript proposals, will present the first half of two $25,000 grants at a private luncheon on Monday, March 18.
Also on March 18, Tino Balio, an inaugural Academy Film Scholar in 2000, will present highlights from his book The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens 1946-1973 at a free public event at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater. Balio, professor emeritus of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will discuss how American audiences and critics responded to the works of such international filmmakers as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni. Free tickets may be obtained at www.oscars.org.
Academy Celebrates 25th Anniversary Of ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ With Robert Zemeckis And Cast
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present a new digital restoration of “Who
Framed Roger Rabbit” in celebration of the film’s 25th anniversary on Thursday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The evening will feature a post-screening onstage discussion with director Robert Zemeckis and members of the cast and crew, including actress Joanna Cassidy, voice actor Charles Fleischer, supervising animator Andreas Deja, screenwriter Peter S. Seaman and associate producers Don Hahn and Steve Starkey. The panel will be moderated by director Rich Moore, who received an Oscar® nomination for Animated Feature Film for “Wreck-It Ralph” this past year.
Longest Oscars In Hollywood History? Yawnfest Instead Of Usual Snorefest?
Join Nikki Finke at 5:30 PM PT for her annual Oscar Live-Snarking!
EXCLUSIVE: What is maybe the most anticipated Academy Awards in recent memory is also mutating into what could be one of the longest Oscars in Hollywood history. I can feel a yawnfest coming on already. Sources tells me that last week the show clocked in at 3 hours and 40 minutes. Then it was shortened. But now the telecast doesn’t even commence presenting the Best Picture Oscar until after 3 hours and 23 minutes. And that’s only if everything goes according to schedule – which it never does. The 
telecast’s opening number lasts a full 15 minutes in what is the prelude to the most music-filled Academy Awards ever. So this could easily become an Oscar ceremony lasting 4-plus hours. (The longest on record is 4 hours, 23 minutes in 2002.) That’s not good news for longtime Academy Awards broadcaster ABC whose research demonstrates that, after 11 PM East Coast Time, the network loses 100,000 people per minute. That could hurt ratings for Sunday’s show which contains more suspense than in recent years. At around $1.7 million to $1.8 million for a 30-second spot, the Disney-owned ABC has sold out its ad inventory at prices higher than the network has charged since 2008 when the economy started to tank.
I’m usually in the habit of proclaiming doom and gloom every time these marquee Hollywood awards celebrate the movie season. But not this time around. Because I don’t anticipate a snorefest. Rarely have so many of the 24 categories including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Screenplays, and more been up for grabs. Is it Jennifer Lawrence or Jessica Chastain or the 85-year-old French star Emmanuelle Riva of Amour? Is it Steven Spielberg or Ang Lee or dark horse David O Russell? Is it Argo or Lincoln or shocker Silver Linings Playbook? Nobody knows for sure. Read More »
OSCARS: The Money, The Ads & Kimmel
The Academy Awards are about movies but they are also about money, too. And this year the moolah looks good for ABC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At around $1.7 million to $1.8 million … Read More »
OSCARS: As Final Deadline Approaches Academy Urges Members To Vote; Studios Launch Last-Minute Ad Blitz
Okay Academy members, this is your last chance to vote.
And by all indications from my own admittedly unscientific survey over the weekend there are many 
who are choosing to wait, despite the Academy’s emails encouraging them to vote early in this final round. Part of the reason seems to be a desire to catch up on the Documentary Feature, Live Action and Animation Shorts which have been sent to the entire Academy membership for the first time, instead of requiring voters to attend special screenings. One voter told me he received his late and was trying to watch them all before submitting his ballot.
With today being a holiday, those voters who opted for paper ballots and still haven’t mailed them are out of luck if they hope to do that and still have it reach the downtown Los Angeles offices of the Academy’s accountants, PricewaterhouseCoopers, or the Academy lobby at its Beverly Hills headquarters in time before Tuesday’s 5 PM deadline. If you are a paper voter, not electronic, the best you can do at this point is have the ballot delivered in person to one of those locations before 5 PM tomorrow. And every year there are usually many that do just that. It has even numbered up into the hundreds in past years. But with the new, sometimes awkward, transition to online voting this year, that number will probably be significantly decreased.
Read More »
OSCARS: Host Seth MacFarlane On Video
The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has released portions of an interview with 85th annual Oscars host Seth MacFarlane on his biggest challenge as host, on his involvement in the show’s production, on keeping things unpredictable, on how Saturday Night Live helped him prepare, on interacting … Read More »
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