Today the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences dropped a surprise on movieworld that's a bit more staggering than last year's snubbing of The Dark Knight. President of the Academy Sid Ganis has revealed that this year's Oscars will have ten nominees for the ultimate award of Best Picture, as opposed to only five.

"After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year," Ganis stated. "The final outcome, of course, will be the same - one Best Picture winner - but the race to the finish line will feature 10, not just five, great movies from 2009."

This is indeed a technique from way back in Oscar's history. In the beginning years of the award show, there was a span of nine years where there were ten nominees. In fact, in 1934 and 1935, there were twelve films vying for Best Picture.

"Having ten Best Picture nominees is going to allow the Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the top race for the top prize," stated Ganis.

The nominees, whatever those films may be, will be announced February 2nd, 2010.

Call me Carl Muntz crazy, but I believe Ganis' last line, about "the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories," is basically code for Pixar movies. I'm sure he wasn't deaf to the confusion and moans that came from Oscar's downsizing of films like Ratatouille and Wall-E. So maybe this does point towards the light that Up will get a Best Picture nomination that it pretty much deserves. Having said that though, it's still a question of whether intelligent blockbusters (Dark Knight) will get due credit from the Academy's mostly 65+ up voting demographic.

But yes, Jeff Bayer, with the nominee list expanded to ten, maybe your beloved Star Trek will get to fly high at the Oscars.

Just think about it, everyone. What if this had happened earlier?! Would Children of Men have been able to get Best Picture nominee bragging rights? Or even, how about The Wrestler? Would that little movie have had more of a chance of Ram-Jamming the Oscars even more if it came out this year?

What movies from the past do you wish were nominated?

Source: Oscars