Dayum. What sayeth ye, Avatar?

This is the one guild Avatar seemed most likely to win.I was rooting for District 9 though I'm happy for The Hurt Locker since this shakes up the race. Perhaps the producers didn't want to hear another James Cameron acceptance speech.

Did it win the SAG? Because actors make up the largest voting section.

This is the biggest shocker of the awards season so far. If there is one guild Avatar is destined to win, it's the PGA. Now The Hurt Locker is looking to take PGA, DGA, WGA, and potentially BAFTA to battle Avatar's $700m+ box office. Going to be very interesting.

Yay! Avatar is not going to win BP! there is justice in the world!

Well this looks like it's going to be the most ironic Oscars ever.

With the Academy deciding to expand the Best Picture nominees to 10, because the Academy members kept ignoring huge box-office hits that were loved by both the general public and the critics, and were instead nominating little seen movies that most non-film buffs have never heard or cared about.

It now looks like the Academy is going to award The Hurt Locker the big prize, which would make it the lowest grossing Best Picture winner of all-time.

It's not ironic really. Avatar will still be nominated in more categories than any other film, will probably win more Oscars than any other film, and the top ten will have crowdpleasers like Avatar, Up, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, Up In The Air and potentially Star Trek.

It is ironic. You really don't think the Academy decided to expand the number of Best Picture nominees just so a movie that only made $12 million dollars can win do you? They want the general public to think that they actually do give a crap somewhat on what movies they think should win.

Picking such a low grosser even by the 1950’s and earlier standards kind of defeats that purpose.

They don't care if a successful movie wins. Only that it gets nominated. It's not like they are afraid of people changing the channel after Best Picture is announced.

But they do care about the future ratings. People are going to stop tuning in, like the patterns have been showing if the audience knows what's the point in watching when the film I want to win is going to be beaten by a movie I have never even heard of before.

Now I know that doesn't make it right, cause there have been films in the past that were deserving even though their box-office intake had a lot to be desired, but it will make the Academy less and less relevant to the viewers.

What were the ratings for the Globes? Did Avatar's presence as a nominee make a significant difference in the ratings?

It helped a little, but ratings for award shows are mostly likely never going to be as high as they were in the past, because it seems the majority of the public has just stop caring.

I'm thinking that Star Trek and District 9's presence really caused vote splitting against Avatar, so The Hurt Locker had the passionate plurality.

Even if both those films are also nominated for BP Oscar, vote splitting won't be a factor against Avatar for the Oscar due to the elimination counting process.

Someone ight care about the ratings....but why the hell would voters care about them?

Yay for The Hurt Locker. It'll be an interesting race. And I don't think that Avatar will necessarily win most Oscars. The Hurt Locker could potentially end up winning five: Picture, Director, Cinematography, Editing, Original Screenplay vs. Avatar's four - Art Direction, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects.

I'm gonna chalk this one up to vote splitting . I can't imagine that producers would choose a film that grossed 12 million versus a film that has done 1.8 BILLION . There's no contest here if we're talking about the most successfully produced film of the bunch .

You seem to be confusing 'most successfully produced' with 'most successfully marketed'

It wouldn't matter how much marketing the Hurt Locker had. It wouldn't have been as successful and we know it.

Producers split and that's okay. Oscar won't be the same.

Did you complete you PhD?

Ratings considerations could perhaps matter in nominations, but not in the awards themselves. I mean does they care if someone changes the channel once Hurt Locker is perhaps announced the Best Pic winner? The show is over at that point!

Disgusting

Awesome! I hope it wins Picture over AVATAR.

Avatar - Picture
Bigelow - Director

I wonder how a Hurt Locker best picture, Cameron best director would sit with people. It could happen.

Splits are pretty rare to begin with... Can anyone list off the last couple?