And the winner is...
Still not Bob Yari.
A California state appeals court has rejected the Hollywood producer's last-ditch effort to collect a retroactive Academy Award for his work on 2005's Crash.
Yari, a well-respected indie film financier, got the initial cash infusing to get the gritty racial drama off the ground. He wound up suing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America in 2005 after being excluded from the team that took home the Best Picture Oscar.
The Producers Guild ultimately ruled in 2005 that writer-director Paul Haggis and fellow producer Cathy Schulman did the bulk of the actual movie-producing work, and were the only two of the six credited producers (the list also included star Don Cheadle, cowriter Bobby Moresco and veteran indie producer Mark R. Harris) eligible for the Oscar.
Yari claimed in his suit that the Academy's rule change in 2005, allowing only three producers to be listed for Best Picture contenders, denied him the recognition, prestige and business boost that comes from winning Hollywood's top prize.
On Tuesday, however, the 2nd District Court of Appeals upheld a 2006 lower court ruling that private organizations have a right to determine the rules behind their awards.
Bruce Davis, excecutive director of the Motion Picture Academy, was heartened by the court win.
"It is not a surprise to us, but it is nice to be assured that the courts don't want to be in the business of deciding who wins an Academy Award," he said.
Yari, understandably, wasn't as psyched, and suggested a conspiracy thwarted his Oscar bid.
"It is unfortunate that the court has decided the law will not provide any due process protection—on a very publicly visible organization which represents our industry—to decisions on qualifications based on solid standards," he said. "Now, decisions made by potentially misinformed individuals, with all sorts of possible conflicts of interest, can be made behind closed doors without any concern for scrutiny on fairness."
A year after the Crash controversy, a similar brouhaha broke out when Little Miss Sunshine was nominated for Best Picture and two out of the five credited producers were left out of the Academy-sanctioned credits. However, that dispute was rendered moot when The Departed won.
While Yari has also engaged in a legal battle with Schulman over the film's profits, he apparently has no ill will for the rest of the Crash team.
He has teamed with Haggis, Harris, Cheadle, along with Tom Nunan, to executive produce a 13-episode TV series based on Crash that's set to premiere on Starz in August.