Academy Awards | featured news

One day after Eddie Murphy stepped aside as host, the Academy named a replacement with Oscar experience, moving quickly to fill another key role that had been vacated this week.

Brett Ratner is out as producer of the 84th Academy Awards show. It's been a tumultuous several days for Ratner, who, amongst several offenses, used a gay slur when asked a question about filmmaking. The director said that "rehearsing is for fags" in a Q&A session following a screening of his new film, "Tower Heist," at L.A.'s Arclight Cinemas.

Do dogs deserve biographies? In “Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend,” Susan Orlean answers that question resoundingly in the affirmative, while also asking a harder one: Can a dog deserve an Oscar? At the first Academy Awards, presented in 1929, the charismatic German shepherd who fought off gangs of villains in movies like “Clash of the Wolves” and “Jaws of Steel” won the vote count for best actor, but the Academy blinked, recalculated and gave the honor instead to Emil Jannings. Not that the public would have necessarily protested an Oscar for Rin Tin Tin.

France has chosen "La guerre est declaree" ("War is declared") to represent it at next year's Oscars.

Robertson, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a mentally disabled bakery janitor in the movie "Charly," died Saturday.

The rumors became a reality Tuesday: Eddie Murphy will host the 84th Academy Awards, which will be telecast Feb. 26 on ABC, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced.

edit@hollywoodreporter.com (THR staff) "You know who is an even better choice to host the Oscars than Eddie Murphy? EVERYONE," writes a Twitter user, while another opines that he would be "a HUGE improvement over" James Franco and Anne Hathaway.read more

The film academy has tapped Brett Ratner and Don Mischer (MIS'-sher) to produce next year's Academy Awards. This will be Ratner's first involvement with the Oscar show and Mischer's second: He produced and directed the 2011 Academy Awards telecast and was nominated for an Emmy for his work on the show.

Surprise! During a meeting of the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors on Tuesday night, it was decided that the Best Picture voting system would be changed to allow for anywhere from five to ten nominees in a given year, depending on the quality of films available. The exact number of Best Picture participants won’t be announced until the nominations are revealed in January.

It's a sea change at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.