Even a best picture Oscar isn't enough to get theaters excited about playing a movie already on DVD.

On Monday, the day after their movie "The Hurt Locker" won top prizes at the Academy Awards, Summit Entertainment chief executive Rob Friedman and his team worked the phones trying to expand the Iraq war drama's run beyond the 283 theaters where it played last weekend. The independent studio was hoping to capitalize on its victories, which also included the director prize for Kathryn Bigelow, and enhance the picture's paltry $14.7-million domestic box-office total.

But most of the nation's major exhibition chains refused to give Summit more screens, citing a policy of not showing films that are already available to watch at home. Two of the three biggest, AMC Entertainment and Cinemark, agreed to play the movie at just a handful of theaters, according to a knowledgeable person. However, Regal Entertainment, the biggest theater circuit in the U.S., won't show the film at all, the person said.

Regal did not immediately respond for comment.

Because exhibitors want to discourage studios from releasing films on DVD before they finish playing in theaters, they generally refuse to re-book a movie after it's available in home entertainment formats. They do occasionally bend that rule, however. For example, Warner Bros. has re-released 2004's "The Polar Express" several times during the holiday season, as has Walt Disney Studios each Halloween with "The Nightmare Before Christmas."

In total, Summit was only able to book 35 new theaters for "The Hurt Locker" in the U.S. this Friday, bringing its total to 318. Most are independent theaters or part of small chains.

After coming out on DVD Jan. 12, "The Hurt Locker" has continued to play at just a few hundred theaters, some of which don't typically play first-run films.

In Los Angeles, "The Hurt Locker" is already playing at several theaters, including ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood and The Landmark in West L.A.

"The Hurt Locker" has performed well in the home entertainment market. Through Saturday, Summit sold 780,000 DVDs and electronic downloads. In addition, the movie has been rented 5.4 million times by consumers. That's a relatively high number for a movie that has grossed less than $15 million.

It will likely get a further boost in DVD sales and rentals this week following the Oscars.

The last Oscar best picture winner that was already on DVD was "Crash," which took the prize in 2006. Lionsgate was only able to book the movie in about 200 theaters after it won. Over four weeks it generated $1.2 million in additional box-office receipts.

--Ben Fritz and Claudia Eller

Photo: Director-producer Kathryn Bigelow holding her two Oscars for "The Hurt Locker" at Sunday's ceremony. Credit: Gabriel Buoys / AFP / Getty Images.

Maybe it was the expanded best-picture category or, who knows, maybe it was that Neil Patrick Harris opening number. Whatever it was, Oscar ratings were up big time.

About 41.3 million people tuned in to ABC last night for the 82nd Academy Awards to see "The Hurt Locker" take best picture and best director and Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock walk away with the lead acting honors. That's an almost 14% jump from the 2009 awards, which were seen by 36.3 million, according to Nielsen. In the coveted category of adults ages 18 to 49, the Oscars averaged a 13.1 rating, an 8% gain over last year's show. Each rating point in that demographic represents 1.3 million viewers.

Sunday's telecast was the most-watched Oscars since the 2005 show, which saw Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" take best picture. in five years. This is the second year in a row the audience for the Oscars has grown. Of course, the bar has been pretty low lately. The 2008 awards, which saw "No Country for Old Men" take the top prize, were the least-viewed on record with only 32 million people watching.

The Oscar ratings again highlight the strength of big event television. The audiences have been growing for award shows as of late, with the Golden Globes, Emmy Awards, Super Bowl and Grammy Awards all seeing their audiences get bigger.

ABC was certainly helped by its parent company, Walt Disney Co., resolving its fight with Cablevision Systems Corp. Disney had pulled the signal of WABC-TV New York from 3.1 million Cablevision homes in the nation's No. 1 television market. A tentative deal was reached between the two companies as the show began, and the signal was restored to those homes about 15 minutes into the Oscar telecast. Numbers in New York for the first half hour of the show's broadcast were down but rose throughout the night as word spread that WABC-TV was back on in Cablevision homes.

The painful Oscar pre-show on ABC, in which co-host Kathy Ireland, whose interview skills with stars was a disservice to Sports Illustrated swimsuit models everywhere, averaged 25.1 million viewers. Barbara Walters' final interview special lured 15 million viewers, a 30% gain over the 2009 special.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: Director and best picture winner Kathryn Bigelow does some two-fisted celebrating. Credit: Valerie Macon/ AFP Getty Images. 

While everyone puts the finishing touches on their Oscar pools, it seems appropriate to take a look at the ratings of the show over the last few years and see if we can get any hints on how Sunday's telecast will perform.

Awards shows have been on the rise as of late, with the Grammys, Emmys and Golden Globes all making ratings gains. ABC's Oscars broadcast should easily beat last year's numbers, but if it doesn't top 40 million viewers, it seems safe to say the word "disappointment."

Last year's Oscars, which saw "Slum Dog Millionaire" take home the top prize, was seen by 36.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen. Though that's not a spectacular number, it was actually an improvement on the 2008 show, which drew just 32 million viewers ("No Country for Old Men" was the best picture winner) and was the least-watched Oscars show ever, according to the information Nielsen has. However, Nielsen does not have viewer information for the Oscars before 1974, so who knows, maybe there was a smaller audience for the year "Midnight Cowboy" won. The second least-watched Oscars was 2003, when "Chicago" won best picture.

Because this year's broadcast has an expanded best picture category and the hugely successful "Avatar" is in the running, many are expecting a big audience. If history is a guide, there may be reason for such optimism. The last time a James Cameron movie was in the Oscar running was 1997 with "Titanic," and that telecast had a record audience of 55.2 million viewers. If you're curious, the previous record was in 1983, when 53.2 million watched "Ghandi" win. 

But although "Avatar" is a hit, that alone might not be enough to bring a big audience. There is the Leonardo DiCaprio factor. He starred in "Titanic," but "Avatar" does not have any superstars in it. And yes, "Titanic" helped cement DiCaprio's status as a superstar, but it does not seem like "Avatar" is going to have the same effect on its cast. The year "The Departed" (another DiCaprio movie) won best picture, 40.2 million people tuned in.

Then there are the hosts. Hosts probably can't boost a show's ratings so much as hurt them. Although Steve Martin is at national-treasure status, there are probably as many people who loathe Alec Baldwin as there are who love him. Well, as long as his daughter doesn't call 911 during the program, hopefully everything will be OK.

There is one other factor to consider, and it's a big one. ABC is threatening to pull the signal for its New York City television station, WABC, from Cablevision on Sunday. Cablevision serves 3.1 million homes in that region. If ABC follows through on that threat and the Oscars are not available to Cablevision subscribers, that could depress the ratings.

We'll see who blinks.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: A Kodak Theatre security guard stands watch over Oscar. Credit: Amy Sancetta / Associated Press

After amassing more than $2 billion in global ticket sales, “Avatar” seems like the last film that would get a financial boost from today’s Oscar nominations. But Academy Award recognition can bring surprising benefits to even the least needy candidates.

Though director James Cameron’s 3-D blockbuster has been atop the box office charts for seven weeks, much of the business has come from repeat customers. However, there is still a potentially untapped audience.

“There are plenty of people around the world who are not frequent moviegoers and may be motivated by the nominations,” said Tom Rothman, chairman of the film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox. With nine nominations, he added, “We expect it to be a meaningful help to the box office.”

• "Avatar": It has already racked up more than $2 billion in worldwide grosses. Fox is hoping the movie's nine nominations will help it reach more infrequent moviegoers, about 12% of the U.S. population who typically go out to the cinema once a year.
• "The Blind Side": Currently playing nationwide, it has grossed $237 million domestically. However, nominations for best picture and actress Sandra Bullock could provide a major boost as the film rolls out internationally in the next few months. "These nominations will certainly help the film overseas," said Sue Kroll, president of marketing for “Blind Side” distributor Warner Bros. "They will be included in all the advertising across all media."
• "District 9": Sony Pictures' sci-fi action picture is out of theaters after grossing more than $200 million worldwide but could see an increase in its already strong DVD sales. Vice Chairman Jeff Blake said Sony plans to highlight the film's nominations in a big DVD marketing push.
• "An Education": Sony Pictures Classics will expand the British drama, which has collected $8.8 million so far in the U.S. and Canada, from 75 theaters to 760 this Friday.
• "The Hurt Locker": The movie was released on DVD last month. However, Summit is aiming to grow the movie from the 28 theaters it is still playing in to about 100 to boost the modest $12.7 million it has generated.
• "Inglourious Basterds": The Weinstein Co. Co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein said he hopes Oscar attention can generate an additional 1 million DVD unit sales on top of the 3 million it has so far. In addition, director Quentin Tarantino's revisionist World War II drama may get a small re-release in theaters.
• "Precious": It has grossed $44.5 million so far, primarily from African American moviegoers. Lionsgate will triple its theater count to more than 650 and may draw a more diverse audience thanks to its six nominations.
• "A Serious Man": The movie recently finished its theatrical run with $9.2 million. Will be released on DVD next Tuesday.
• "Up": It was released on DVD in December after grossing more than $700 million worldwide. Disney may re-release the animated comedy in its El Capitan Theater in Hollywood to take advantage of the best picture nomination.
• "Up in the Air": The movie is playing in 1,500 theaters. The studio will not add more theaters but will give the movie another marketing push, says Paramount Pictures Vice Chairman Rob Moore. "These accolades can help give the movie another pop at the box office." The picture has grossed $73.5 million domestically. 

Other films with multiple acting nominations are expanding this week as well. Fox Searchlight's country music drama "Crazy Heart," which received three nominations, including best actor for Jeff Bridges, will go from 239 theaters to more than 800 on Friday. Sony Pictures Classics will expand "The Last Station," for which Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer received acting nominations, to about 50 theaters this week, up from nine.

Studio executives with nominated films will be tallying movie ticket and DVD sales in the coming weeks, but at the same time they have their eye on taking home the big prize. 

"While helping box office is certainly important, even more so is that the best picture Oscar tells generations to come that the winning film has enduring significance,” Fox’s Rothman said.

-- Claudia Eller and Ben Fritz

Top photo: Emma Thompson, Ellie Kendrick, Amanda Fairbank-Hynes and Carey Mulligan in "An Education." Credit: Kerry Brown / Sony Pictures Classics.

Get out the calculator -- Oscar voting just got more complicated.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today took the long expected step to ensure that this year's best picture winner won't be hated by 90% of its members by going with a preferential voting system for members.

In a preferential voting system, votes for the least popular first choice movie are eliminated and those members' second choices are taken into account. The process continues until a nominee receives more than 50% of the votes.

Academy spokesperson Leslie Unger confirmed that the organization will apply the same preferential voting system it uses in the Oscar nomination process to best picture voting starting this winter. The news was first reported by The Wrap.

Such a move has been in the works since the Academy decided in June to expand the number of best picture nominees from five to 10. At the time, Academy Vice President Hawk Koch said that there would be a change in the voting process, stating, "We want to make sure that 11% does not win the best picture."

Under the old system, members simply voted for their first choice. With 10 nominees, that would mean a movie with one vote more than 10% could theoretically be named best picture.

Other categories will continue to utilize the traditional single-vote process to pick winners.

The change marks the first time that the Academy has used preferential voting for best picture since at least 1944, when it reduced the number of nominees from 10 to five.

Update (6:10 PM): Unger clarified that in fact that last time preferential voting was used to select the best picture was in 1945.

--Ben Fritz

If you are going to expand the best picture category from five to ten movies, you've got to cut somewhere or the show will literally go on forever. Say goodbye to the Thalberg, the Hersholt and the Honorary Oscar. The awards will instead be given in a separate black tie ceremony in November, likely at the Kodak Theatre.

Those three awards are the first cuts the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences will make to shorten ABC's broadcast of the show. The Irvin G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which the Academy said  is given to "“creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production" while  the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award is given to an “individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry.” The Honorary Oscar is given, well, as an honorary Oscar.

None of the awards are given out on annual basis. The Thalberg, for example, was last given during the 2001 telecast to Dino de Laurentiis.

Other trims in the telecast are likely in the coming months.

-- Claudia Eller and Joe Flint

Updated at 3:05 p.m.: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Vice President Hawk Koch says that the organization does not want a film with just over 10% support winning the top prize and that the board of governors will revisit the Oscar voting rules at its next meeting.

"We want to make sure that 11% does not win the best picture," said Koch, who is both on the academy awards review committee and the board of governors.

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Could 11% of the vote be enough to snag an Oscar for best picture?

If the current rules apply, the answer is yes.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this week doubled the number of best picture nominees to 10. Under the existing guidelines, the academy's approximately 5,800 members simply select their first choice out of the nominated films, and the one with the most votes wins.

But perhaps mindful of a potentially perverse result in which nearly 90% of voters don't agree with the outcome, the Oscars' governing body is considering a rules change.

"We're studying how the voting procedures will work now based on this change," said academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger.

Any changes probably would involve some kind of ranking system that takes into the second, third, etc. choices of voters whose No. 1 selection isn't among the top vote-getters.

Such a system is already used to pick the nominees. Voters have traditionally selected and ranked their top five films of the year. If the rules don't change, they would simply rank their top 10.

But such a ranked system comes with its own flaws. Most notably, any film that doesn't get a single first-place vote is eliminated, even if it is an overwhelming second choice. And you thought figuring out who the No. 1 college football team is was hard.

-- Ben Fritz and John Horn

Photo: The cast and crew of "Slumdog Millionaire" accept the best picture Oscar in February. Credit: Kevin Winter / Getty Images

You can thank "Dreamgirls" director Bill Condon and producer Laurence Mark for this morning's announcement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science that the best picture category will feature 10 nominees as opposed to the traditional five.

The rule change took Hollywood by surprise, leaving more than a few studio honchos sputtering about rising marketing costs and the thought of having to say no to even more high-powered directors and producers whining for bigger and splashier Oscar campaigns.

According to Academy President Sid Ganis, the idea was first broached during a post-mortem between Condon and Mark, the executive producer and producer, respectively, of this year’s Oscar telecast, and the Academy Awards review committee, which oversees the ceremony.

By several accounts, review Committee Chairman Tom Sherak, the former president of Fox, picked up the ball and ran with it. “He was a major advocate” Ganis said.

Sherak’s small committee also included former New Line marketing guru Cheryl Boone-Isaacs, Steven Spielberg’s personal spokesman, Marvin Levy, director Phil Alden Robinson and cinematographer Owen Roizman. The idea was proposed to the entire Academy board at a meeting in April. Much kibitzing and more committee meetings followed until the proposal was finally voted on last night, where it won approval.

The final vote wasn’t unanimous, but Ganis wouldn't name the holdout. "This is a board of film artists. It’s often a polite but heated, intense discussion. Managing that group gets a little tough," he said, laughing. “The group gets a little rowdy.”

-- Rachel Abramowitz

In Wednesday's Times, find out more about the decision, its impact on the film business and the reaction of stars like Samuel L. Jackson and Jon Favreau; the financial reasons behind the move; the new calculus for potential best picture nominees; and read commentary from film critic Kenneth Turan and columnist Patrick Goldstein.

Photo: Oscar telecast producers Bill Condon (left) and Laurence Mark. Credit: Al Seib, Los Angeles Times.

In a grim year for the media business, the Academy's decision to double the number of best picture nominees might turn into economic stimulus for the publications that cover showbiz.

"This could be a windfall for The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and other newspapers," said Joel Wayne, a former studio marketing executive who worked at Warner Bros. for 25 years, referring to the two main trade publications that cover the entertainment business.

The Los Angeles Times also has aggressively solicited "for your consideration" ads that studios run leading up to voting for the Oscars and Emmys.

On its face, today's announcement seems like great news for Variety and the Reporter, which have been hit with big drops in ad revenue this year because of recession-driven cutbacks and a broad consensus early in the 2008-09 awards season that "Slumdog Millionaire," the eventual winner, was a sure thing.

But some studios executives -- such as Jeff Blake, Sony Pictures marketing and distribution chairman -- say that more nominee slots and more shots at the prize won't convince them to spend more. Many in Hollywood have expressed concern that there isn't enough financial return on Oscar campaigns because few nominated films get a significant bump in ticket or DVD sales.

"It’s anyone’s guess how this will effect the marketing strategy of the studios, but a wider field at least opens the door for much more opportunity for a film to win the best picture award," said Brian Gott, publisher of Variety.

Lynne Segall, vice president of entertainment advertising for The Times, also wasn't ready to be optimistic.

"It has been such an unusual year with studio layoffs and how they look at budgets," she said. "An Academy Award is still a pedigree everybody wants, but it's hard to say if this really is going to make everybody start spending more."

-- Ben Fritz

In Wednesday's Times, find out more about the decision, its impact on the film business and the reaction of stars like Samuel L. Jackson and Jon Favreau; the financial reasons behind the move; the new calculus for potential best picture nominees; and read commentary from film critic Kenneth Turan and columnist Patrick Goldstein.

Photo: The Hollywood Reporter office in Los Angeles. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Hollywood executives and producers respond to the news that there will be 10 best picture nominees this year, instead of the traditional five.

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Jon Favreau, director of "Iron Man" and "Elf"

I think its 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. I think 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 are more choices.

Tom Bernard, president, Sony Pictures Classics:

Laura Ziskin, producer of the "Spider-Man" movies and two previous Oscar telecasts:

Joel Wayne, retired studio marketing executive who worked at Warner Bros. for 25 years:

Mike Vollman, president of marketing at MGM/UA: