How Oscar Voters Could Make the Best Picture Category Even Weirder This Year

thewrap.com:

I argued that there was one easy way to help a bigger variety of films receive nominations for Best Picture: Junk the system that produced a variable number of nominees and go back to a flat 10 nominees, the system that was in place in 2010 and 2011.Now we’ll get to see if I knew what I was talking about.My point in late 2018 was that the move to a variable number of nominations also reduced the number of lines on the Best Picture nominating ballot from 10 to five, giving voters no reason to reach for adventurous or offbeat choices to fill those slots.“Enough with the variable-nominee silliness, AMPAS,” I wrote. “Its very existence narrows the thinking of people who ought to be embracing all that filmmakers have to of fer.

Give voters a reason to think beyond the usual suspects, please.”This year, in an attempt to get more diversity into the nominations, the Academy is returning to a flat 10 nominees and giving voters 10 lines on their online ballots.

And even though the ranked-choice or preferential system of vote counting means that lower choices don’t come into play all that often, the mere existence of those spots can encourage voters to think expansively, not narrowly.And in place of the single round of ballot redistribution that has been in use since 2011, the PwC accountants will go back to multiple rounds, which will provide far more opportunities for films to move up in the rankings even if they aren’t ranked first on a lot of ballots.What would an expanded, outside-the-box slate of nominees look like?

Based on the initial nominations and selections from awards groups including the American Film Institute, the National Board of Review, the Critics Choice Association and the beleaguered but still active Golden.