If this year's best picture lineup is any indication, awards season might finally have become a 12-month affair, with the early-year festivals carrying nearly as much weight as the ones in the fall. Three of the eight nominees debuted at fests that took place before campaigning for last year's Oscars had even drawn to…

An awards consultant, complaining she already was exhausted even though we have four months until the Academy Awards, asked me the other day: "Didn't we just finish the last season? How did it come around so fast?" It's a good question, but the answer seems to be that, in the current state of things, planning your…

Joaquin Phoenix and Anthony Hopkins may not approve, but Oscar season campaigning on the party circuit has been at fever pitch. “We’ve never seen anything like this. We’re exhausted. We are out every night it seems and the invitations keep coming,”  one Oscar-winning Academy member told me recently. He was referring…

HAMMOND: Will Oscars’ New Rules Actually Increase The Campaign Frenzy? Beverly Hills, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today issued regulations for how movies and achievements eligible for the 84th Academy Awards may be marketed to Academy members. The most notable change affects screening events…

The Deadline Team of Nikki Finke, Pete Hammond, and Mike Fleming have spent recent days interviewing the studio moguls to gauge their perspective on this very close Oscar race: WALT DISNEY STUDIOS 12 Nominations: 5 Toy Story 3, 3 Alice In Wonderland, 1 Tron: Legacy 3D, 1 The Tempest, 1 Tangled, 1 Day & Night DEADLINE’s…

Sony Pictures is looking for any way to focus attention back on the reasons why The Social Network was the early Best Picture frontrunner for most of the season until it got gobsmacked in the Guild awards by a certain British film. So the studio is taking out ads in Los Angeles promoting a free screening of David…

Apparently she wasn’t content to let the Paramount and Relativity marketing machine do all the campaign work. So Best Supporting Actress frontrunner Melissa Leo personally paid for Hollywood trade ads (including on Deadline.com) Thursday showing  her super glammed-up wearing "Faux (not real) Fur" and a glittery…

The Oscar ballots went into the mail today and should be in every one of the 5,755 voting members' hands by tomorrow, or at least by the weekend depending on how long it takes some of them to travel to snowbound or far-flung places. The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has set a due date of February 22nd…

If you haven't filled out your Oscar nominating ballot yet, you have until 5 PM PT today to get it to the PriceWaterhouse Coopers offices in Los Angeles at 350 S. Grand, Suite 4900. There have been years where 400 to 500 ballots have been walked in the day they were due, according to one Academy Of Motion Picture Arts…

Parties are rampant as usual at this point in awards season but the biggest new trend, or so it seems at least, is the number of publicized hosted screenings and endorsements for various contenders. There was a time when it was thought the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences officially frowned on having their…