To paraphrase Mark Twain, media reports of the imminent death of the relationship between the Oscars and its broadcast home for the past decade, the Kodak theatre, are greatly exaggerated. In fact the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences issued a statement to Deadline tonight saying The Hollywood Reporter‘s claims are “erroneous”. (We hear Academy President Tom Sherak screamed at THR‘s Alex Ben Block and demanded a retraction.) The Academy officially denied to Deadline that AMPAS is already in discussions to move the Academy Awards to AEG’s 7,100-seat Nokia Theatre. ”The Academy has not begun any negotiations for the Oscar telecast beyond 2013.”
Off the record, multiple Academy sources are telling Deadline they are not on their way to terminating the deal for the Kodak. They tell us they want to stay at the venue and have not yet had any discussions or negotiations with the Nokia or anyone else. So what’s going on? This all boils down to THR looking to manufacture news. And normal business posturing so that the Academy can put itself into the best possible bargaining position with the Kodak’s owner CIM group as the two sides start discussing the future. AMPAS wants as sweet a deal as possible, so it exercised an option in its contract to have at least the ability to consider another venue after the 2013 show. If the Academy had not exercised the option 
though … Read More
Tag Academy
Academy Denies Discussions With Nokia About Moving Oscar Telecast From Kodak
Jeremy Irvine Is A Rising Star, Thanks To War Horse, Visits Letterman [PHOTOS]
Prior to War Horse, Jeremy Irvine‘s only claim to fame was playing a tree in the chorus of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Academy Report Paints A Pretty Picture
As glossy as the image the industry it represents prefers to project, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is the picture of financial health, according to its recently released annual report. The Oscars remain the Academy’s biggest single source of income with $85.5 million for fiscal year 2011 versus $82.7 million for 2010, roughly a 3.4% increase. Expenses related to the Academy Awards amounted to $35.6 million for 2011 leaving Oscars net revenue of about $49.9 million. Oscars-related expenses including production of 
the show for 2010 were about $33.3 million which left $49.4 million net revenue for Academy Awards-related activities. Significantly, the organization’s expenses for 2011 also include $2.3 million set aside for museum development for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The Academy and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art have agreed to develop plans to establish the facility in the former May Company building at the corner of Fairfax and Wilshire. Expenses also include theater operations, fellowships, the Fairbanks Center which includes the Margaret Herrick Library and the Pickford Center.
Revenues from all other sources including investments, membership dues, donations and the like were $26.5 million for 2011, an increase of about 77% over the $15 million in non-Oscars revenue for 2010. Investments represent the second-largest chunk of the Academy’s revenues, with 2011 net … Read More
Film Academy Adds 4 To Sci-Tech Council
Pioneering camera technologist Denny Clairmont, cinematographer John Hora, comprehensive digital media studio advocate Bob Lambert and film preservationist and asset archival innovator Milt Shefter have joined the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Clairmont co-founded Clairmont Camera which became one of the largest camera rental companies in the world. He’s been a member of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee since 1993 and an an Academy member since 2002. Hora’s credits include Honey I Blew Up the Kid, Gremlins and Twilight Zone: The Movie. He has been a member of the Academy’s Cinematographers Branch since 1986. Longtime Disney senior executive Lambert has been a leader in the transition to digital technologies, such as the CAPS system for feature animation, which was recognized with a Scientific and Engineering Award in 1991. Lambert has been an Academy member since 1999. Shefter is known for the creation, design and management of the Paramount Pictures Asset Protection Program, including construction of state-of-the-art archival facilities worldwide. He’s been an Academy member since 1989.
Hammond: 2013 Oscar Show May Not Be Moving Earlier
EXCLUSIVE: With Monday night’s Gotham Awards and Tuesday’s announcement of the Independent Spirit Award nominations and winners of the New York Film Critics awards (more on that below), awards season is in full swing and we are barely past Thanksgiving. It seems as if the season is
becoming a literal rush to judgment with screenings beginning only this week for some big titles such as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Angelina Jolie’s In The Land of Blood and Honey.
But things could become even more hurried if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences actually follows through on their much-talked about plan to move the Oscars earlier in 2013 by as much as a month. The most-discussed date is the last Sunday of January that year — the 27th. The current season’s Oscars will be on Sunday February 26th. But as it turns out, I have learned that a significantly earlier Oscarcast is very unlikely for 2013 and even 2014.
The prevailing thinking is that an earlier Oscars would mercifully shorten the long awards season and make them more competitive with the slew of movie awards shows that precede the Academy Awards beginning with this week’s events (The National Board of Review will also announce their winners on Thursday). Past Academy President Sid Ganis and current President Tom Sherak … Read More
Warner Bros TV’s Bruce Rosenblum Elected New TV Academy Chairman/CEO; Wants Newer Members “More Actively Involved”
WEDNESDAY 9:30 PM UPDATE: Nikki Finke spoke to Warner Bros TV’s Bruce Rosenblum right after the Academy Of Television Arts & Sciences Board Of Governors elected him the new Chairman/CEO for a 2-year term. Rosenblum had been opposed by Nancy Bradley Wiard, a veteran TV Academy officer currently in her second term as first vice chair:
“Nancy had many more years of experience and was very familiar to all of the governors and knew the workings of the Academy. I think I gave them a nice alternative choice. I don’
More Academy Housecleaning: Leslie Unger Exits So is Ric Robertson Next? (Hopefully)
So Leslie Unger, communications director for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is departing on December 2nd after 19 years. I predict that her pal in every sense of the word Ric Robertson won’t be far behind. He’s been looking hither and yon for another job ever since Dawn Hudson came in over him and he was passed over for Bruce Davis’ executive directorship. It was clear Unger was toast as well as soon as the Academy’
Visual Cool: The Title Design Of Saul Bass
In honor of the publication of Saul Bass: A Life In Film & Design, Art of the Title editor-in-chief Ian Albinson assembled this compilation of clips from some of Bass’ memorable designs for movies. In addition, the Museum of Modern Art featured a screening and talk Monday night with the New York premiere of Saul and Elaine Bass’s Academy Award-winning short Why Man Creates (1968), newly preserved by the Academy Film Archive, and a selection of title sequences, commercials and corporate campaigns. Bass created titles for Psycho, The Man with the Golden Arm, Spartacus, The Seven Year Itch, West Side Story, Walk on the Wild Side, Anatomy of a Murder and many other classics. He also designed posters for numerous Academy Awards ceremonies. Bass, who died November 14, 1996, also created logos for Dixie, Quaker Oats, United Airlines and many other companies. If you’re curious a section of this site is dedicated to Bass’
Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Adventures Of Tintin’ To Close AFI Fest
Clint Eastwood’
David Seidler To Keynote Nicholl Fellowships Presentation Nov. 3
Beverly Hills, CA ‘
Motion Picture Academy Leaders Hype New LACMA Movie Museum Plans: ‘All The Pieces Fit Together’
Just when you thought it was a dead duck, it’s back and quacking.
For those who have had the dream of a world class movie museum coming to fruition in L.A., film capital of the world (count me in on that), last night’s announcement that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art have begun the process of 
finally making that dream come true is good news all around. And that longtime dream museum, which was turning into more of a nightmare for the Academy, is going to be right down the street from the Acad’s own Beverly Hills headquarters (at least that’s the plan).
The Academy is saying the project housed in the historic old May Co. on Wilshire Blvd now known as LACMA West will take three to five years to complete. “We are on the fast track but it will be determined by fund raising,” said the Acad’s new CEO Dawn Hudson, who spoke with me today in a conference call with Academy President Tom Sherak and LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan. Hudson wasn’t throwing out official figures but says she expects it will cost less than half the rough estimate of $480 million that the Academy had targeted for their earlier foiled plan to erect this museum in Hollywood where they spent about 
$50 million so far … Read More
Hammond: Will Oscars’ New Rules Actually Increase The Campaign Frenzy?
Today the Academy giveth and taketh away. The new Academy Award campaign regulations announced earlier are clearly a mixed bag, significantly relaxing some long-standing rules and creating a good deal of freedom pre-nominations while really tightening and restricting activities by nominees and studios post-noms. Essentially what the new regulations do is try to encourage members to see films the way 
they are meant to be seen, in a theatrical setting. To that end Oscar consultants can now freely invite members to Q&A screenings and in the pre-nomination period, even hold food and cocktail receptions before or after. It’s almost like the Academy realizes members need an incentive to get out of the house and the lazy habit of watching contenders on screeners. Previously, as noted in the Acad’s press release, members were not permitted to attend screenings that had filmmaker Q&As and/or receptions attached. Consultants got around this by inviting guild members who also happened to hold an Academy card (clever consultants). Now, no problem, although after the noms are out, members can only go to screenings and Q&As, not receptions. Whether this will open the floodgates and have the desired effect of encouraging members to get their butts in those theater seats is anyone’s guess since Acad members who wanted to go to Q&As and receptions went anyway with their guild cards. Still, it is a nice admission by the Acad that their previous rules had gone too far. … Read More
EMMY DEAL, FINALLY: Mark Burnett To Produce 63rd Primetime Awards On Fox
Tonight’s announcement follows a 7 PM emergency board meeting by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences reported by Deadline to resolve what was seeming like an endless delay in setting this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards on Fox on September 18th. But Deadline learned last night that a new deal to telecast the show was imminent and that Fox would host without any radical changes to the lineup, like moving the writers and directors categories. Sources told Deadline that ATAS lawyers assured the Writers and Directors Guilds staff that the Academy’s waiver agreements for free clips contractually in place with the WGA and DGA would be renewed and stay essentially the same. That meant the TV Academy wouldn’t dare to even try mess with the writers and directors or else pay through the nose for clips. Now that it’s official, everyone in the TV community can breathe a sigh of relief. As for Mark Burnett’s selection as producer, I’d written after one especially rotten Oscarcast that he should have been brought in to fix the Movie Academy’s awful show. He can’t do worse for the Emmys.
Tonight’s TV Academy Board confab resolved any remaining issues standing in the way of a new deal after nearly nine months of protracted negotiations. The TV community’s patience wore thin for a new agreement to be finalized by ATAS and its chief negotiator, powerful showbiz lawyer Kenny Ziffren. After all, it’s just 4½ … Read More
Madonna in Malawai
Malawi is among the poorest nations on the planet. More than half of its 12 million citizens of live on less than one dollar a day. In the village of Chinkhota in southern Malawi, Madonna set out to build a prestigious academy for underprivileged girls. Billed as a “gift” to the African country from which [...]
Barbara Walters tells Whoopi Goldberg to stop glamorizing illegal drugs
This story is in the National Enquirer, so it could be made up but it does have a ring of truth to it. According to the Enquirer, Barbara Walters is upset at Whoopi Goldberg for admitting she was baked when she accepted her Academy Award in 1991 for Ghost. Babs told Whoopi not to talk [...]
Pete Hammond Recalls Elizabeth Taylor's Complicated Dance With Oscar
The list of Oscar intrigue goes on and on and Academy history is full of stories. But hearing of Elizabeth Taylor’
The 2011 Academy Awards: Just the Attractive People
The 2011 Academy Awards: Just the Attractive People By any reasonable standard, the Academy Awards blew donkey cock last night (at one point James Franco walked out a dress which wouldn’t have been funny even if I was high…
…read full story
BAFTA To Honor Christopher Lee From 'Lord Of The Rings' Trilogy/'Star Wars' Prequels
On Sunday February 13th the British Academy of Film and Television Arts will present Sir Christopher Lee with the Academy Fellowship at the Orange British Academy Film Awards ceremony at London’
Hammond: Inside Oscar Nominees Lunch
As he walked into the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton hotel earlier this afternoon, The King’
OSCAR: Now Every Campaign Enters Crucial Final Stretch
The Oscar ballots went into the mail today and should be in every one of the 5,755 voting members’