Now that the Academy Awards has announced that it will be considering twice the number of movies (from 5 to 10) as nominees for the best picture category what people are wondering about is whether we’ll actually be seeing a box office movie get the best picture award. Many are skeptical about such a thing happening though and share Jon Favreau’s, director of “Iron Man”, sentiments when he said, “I think it’s going to help the musicals and comedies and the genre films, but I don’t think this means they will be winning. I think this means more people are in on the party, but I think you will still see films sweep. The nominee list is going to look like an Iraqi presidential ballot with all the names. I also think it could hurt small films that have won in the past, like ‘Crash’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire,’ which may suffer when there’s more choices.” Favreau has a good point indeed since the Oscars are likely expanding the nominee count just to get more attention from the same viewers that watch the box office hits but will likely stick to their current criterion, which will mean that the more artsy films will still keep on winning. Still, for those hoping to at least get nominated this will at least give them a better chance. Better a nominee than be being completely snubbed, right?

As for Oscar’s official reason, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis said, “Last year there were more movies that I thought might have fit in the nominations.” I’m pretty sure that the year before that and the year before that there were also other films that didn’t make the cut which would have if there were 10 nominees instead of 5. So you can bet it’s all about ratings and not their wish to give more films a chance at win the Oscar.