Earlier this week at the American Society of Cinematographers’ nominees announcement luncheon, a publicist friend tipped me off to the fact that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was planning on something different with its own nominations reveal this year. She didn’t know what it was, but she said someone had suggested she not bother getting up early on Tuesday, Jan. 24, to trek it over to the Academy’s offices on Wilshire Boulevard for the annual gathering of publicists and journalists.
Now we know what that was all about .
The Academy announced Friday that it will forgo the assembled audience and instead reveal the nominations through its “own production,” airing on a global live stream and through local broadcasters, including ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
My friend was bummed out, and it’s understandable why. For many, nomination morning is their summit. That cheering and applause you often hear when unexpected names are called — that’s the hard-working publicists who played a big part in pulling it off. Those kinds of moments can put this behind-the-curtain aspect of the season out in front, and who knows, perhaps that’s part of the Academy’s thinking; the organization has always maintained that it would prefer campaigning be minimized (despite offering the single greatest opportunity of the season to do so).
Nevertheless, some are feeling left out.
“You have taken away what I have always tried to explain to people as being the cherry on the top of my awards season sundae,” wrote Dorothea Sargent, an awards consultant and publicist since 2003, in an open letter to the Academy on her Facebook page. Comparing the tradition to waiting on Broadway reviews to roll in at Sardi’s in New York, she continued: “Nomination morning means more to me than the actual awards ceremony. I see it as a place to gather with this crazy band of publicists and consultants I call my colleagues. I use it to measure my performance and question if I did or didn’t do enough, what worked, what didn’t worked, was there more I could have done.”
Oscars Make Slight Changes to Nominations Announcement
For others, though, Friday’s announcement is a reprieve. Nomination morning is an early day for them that begins well before the 5:30am PT announcement, after all.
“I feel like I can sleep another hour and a half instead of waking up at three o’clock, so selfishly, I’m pretty excited about it,” another consultant told me. “You don’t sleep the night before, because you’re so nervous, and the morning comes and you’re like, ‘Oh God, I have to do this.’ But you get there and I don’t know, there’s something about the community. But I guess I can get to the office quicker and start rolling calls, so it’s a time saver.”
One member of the Academy’s public relations branch told me he had been suggesting this for years, as the event is “costly to stage: elevator guys, security guys, all-nighter, etc.”
Others, meanwhile, noted that doing things this way allows AMPAS brass to dodge immediate, sometimes difficult questions. Last year, for instance, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs was besieged by queries about the #OscarsSoWhite scandal, which came to quite a head with films like “Beasts of No Nation,” “Creed” and “Straight Outta Compton” missing key nominations.
However, for the Academy, this could — or at least should — be the first step toward something bigger. The Oscar nominations announcement has been a missed revenue opportunity for quite some time. What is keeping it from being a primetime special like the Grammys or professional sports drafts, heavily promoted, hosted, and with advertising (non-endemic, probably) sold against it?
The reason for an early morning reveal has always been to capitalize on the day’s news cycle, but it’s sort of an old school mentality, and you’ll obviously get that out of a night time special. Everyone will certainly be talking about the nominees the next morning.
I’m not a programming head, so I don’t know what that would mean to the bottom line, and an Academy rep told me there are no plans for such a thing at this moment. And sure, the Academy wants a global audience. But I think it’s something worth exploring, rather than just giving “Good Morning America” a ratings shot in the arm.
For now, though, a beloved tradition is gone.
“I have often said that even if I won the lottery I would continue to do what I do because I love doing it and because I love that dark January morning I spend every year on Wilshire Boulevard,” Sargent said in her letter. “You have taken that away and I am saddened.”

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© Source: http://variety.com/2017/film/in-contention/academy-oscar-nominations-tradition-primetime-1201960493/
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The Fatal Attraction limited series is not moving forward — at least not at Fox.
Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the reboot of the iconic feature film had trouble casting — Megan Fox and Jenna Dewan Tatum both are said to have passed — as rights issues also may have been a problem.
First put in development in July 2015, Mad Men alums Maria and Andre Jacquemetton penned the script — which insiders say did not come out well. Paramount Television, whose film arm distributed the 1987 film starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, produced. The drama may be shopped elsewhere, though if it does move forward, sources say it would not be called Fatal Attraction. Should it have been picked up at Fox, sources say the title would have been changed to Obsession.
The project, which received a script commitment at the time, was being eyed as a short-order event series — but with the potential to continue for a second season. Stanley R. Jaffe and Anonymous Content’s Rosalie Swedlin were on board as exec producers. Fox president of entertainment David Madden developed and supervised the movie — which scored six Oscar nominations — when he was an exec at Paramount’s film studio.

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LOS ANGELES — Lucasfilm, the company behind “Star Wars,” says there are no plans to digitally recreate the late Carrie Fisher to play Princess Leia in future episodes of the movie saga.
The Disney-owned Lucasfilm made the rare foray into the world of “Star Wars” speculation Friday night by issuing a statement denying rumors there were plans to digitize Fisher, who died Dec. 27.
Fisher, who reprised her role as Leia in 2015’s “Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens,” had finished shooting “Star Wars: Episode VIII,” due out next December, when she died.
But she had also been slated to appear in “Episode IX,” scheduled for release in 2019. That film is still being scripted, and the writers are deciding how to deal with Fisher’s death. ”
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Country music stars will perform on the eve of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in Washington.
Toby Keith and Lee Greenwood, as well as Broadway singer Jennifer Holliday, will give a concert on the steps of the famed Lincoln Memorial on Thursday.
Mr Trump will also speak at the event, on the spot where Martin Luther King made his famous I Had A Dream speech to 250,000 people in 1963.
The Republican becomes the 45th president of the US next Friday.
The evening before has been called The Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration and it will be hosted by actor Jon Voight.
Keith is one of the most famous country music singers of the last two decades.
His song Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American) was a patriotic call to arms after 9/11.
Also performing:
President Barack Obama’s inaugurations featured the likes of Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen and U2.
But Mr Trump has said the swearing-in day should be about the people, not the elites.
One of his aides said this week that « soft sensuality » would be a theme.

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(The Sun) The legendary horror writer who penned The Exorcist has passed away at the age of 89.
William Peter Blatty’s death was confirmed on social media by the film’s director William Friedkin this afternoon.
The writer won the Oscar in 1973 for his screenplay, based on his own book that was published in 1971 which told the story of a child possessed by a demon.
And thanks to the film’s success, the possessed child’s image has become iconic among horror fans

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