LOS ANGELES: Film fans will soon learn who's competing for this season's Academy Awards. Now the question is whether any nominees will turn up for the big show amid a writers strike that has thrown the awards season into turmoil.
The list of Oscar nominees to be announced today is expected to include such luminaries as Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis and Angelina Jolie.
That smattering of talent alone would ensure that a lot of people at home would tune in to the February 24 ceremony. But without the co-operation of the striking Writers Guild of America, celebrities might honour the union's picket lines and stay away from the Oscars, leaving the show's planners to either scrap the telecast or come up with some new form of Oscar ceremony unlike anything audiences have seen before.
The word around Hollywood is that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a backup plan to put on the show without the blessing of writers and stars, but they declined to disclose details.
Gil Cates, producer of the Oscar telecast, has vowed the show will come off no matter what, hinting the programme could be padded with clips from 80 years of Oscar history if writers and stars do not co-operate.
Officially, the academy says it is moving ahead with the red carpet and awards ceremony as usual.
"We are planning to have our show at the Kodak Theatre with an audience of 3,300 people and a television audience significantly larger than that," said academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger.
Next to the NFL football Super Bowl, the Oscars are the most-watched annual broadcast in the United States. Last year, 40.2 million Americans tuned in to the Oscars.
The writers strike already took down Hollywood's second-biggest film honors, the Golden Globes.
However, some reports said the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers contacted the writers to resume discussions six weeks after talks broke down over the producers' refusal to meet writers' demands for a greater share of profits from Internet and new media sales.
The informal meetings, aimed at restarting formal negotiations, could take place from today, according to Variety.
