"Aviator" Gets Oscar Credit Check

When it comes to the Oscar race, The Aviator just lost a couple of copilots.

Looking to limit "credit creep," the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences issued a pared-down list of producers eligible to receive an Oscar in the Best Picture race.

Three of this year's contenders, The Aviator, Ray and Million Dollar Baby, had more than the maximum three producers listed on the film credits when the nominations were announced on Jan. 25.

The team behind Ray managed to reach a decision the day of the nominations, with Taylor Hackford, Stuart Benjamin and Howard Baldwin making the cut. Baldwin's wife, Karen, drew the short straw and was left off the ballot.

On Wednesday, the Academy's Producers Branch Executive Committee, following guidelines laid down by the Producers Guild of America in credit-dispute cases, met to determine who would be able to collect a statuette should The Aviator or Million Dollar Baby, the cofavorites right now, win the top prize on Feb. 27.

Of the two films, the battle for Aviator props was the most contentious. Michael Mann, Graham King, Charles Evans Jr. and Sandy Climan were all listed as producers.

Mann and King were the ones who collected the hardware when The Aviator won the Producers Guild Award last month after the guild determined that Evans had no decision-making power over the film. (Climan, one of Mann's cohorts at Forward Pass Production, received a courtesy credit.)

Evans had filed a lawsuit in 2001 against Mann for allegedly hijacking the project. Evans said he developed the Howard Hughes biopic and recruited Leonardo DiCaprio to star, but Mann, at one time in line to direct the film, eventually took the project, DiCaprio included, to another studio.

The lawsuit was eventually settled, with Evans getting a producer credit on the final film.

Despite his PGA diss, Evans hasn't given up his attachment to the film. When The Aviator won the Golden Globe for Best Drama, he reportedly forced himself into a backstage photo op with Mann, King and director Martin Scorsese.

Indeed, when the Motion Picture Academy on Thursday announced the eligible producers for The Aviator, Evans was omitted. Only Mann and King would be allowed on stage should the film win.

Million Dollar Baby, meanwhile, didn't have nearly the backstabbing backstory. Producers Clint Eastwood, Albert Ruddy and Rosenberg were deemed eligible, while screenwriter Paul Haggis, the fourth credited producer, has been left off the ballot.

As for the other two Best Pictures contenders, Richard N. Gladstein and Nelle Bellflower were the uncontested producers of Finding Neverland, and Michael London got the sole producer credit for Sideways.

The Academy adopted the three-nominee rule after the 1998 Oscars, when a small army of five producers, including Miramax studio boss Harvey Weinstein, took to the stage to accept the Best Picture trophy for Shakespeare in Love.

That embarrassing episode led to a crackdown on those who were receiving a producer credit for work that didn't directly relate to the production. That ranged from film financiers to talent managers and agents to actors to directors to screenwriters to various hangers-on who wangled a screen mention because they either knew someone or were related to one of the stars.

Such fraud angered members of the PGA, including guild president Kathleen Kennedy, prompting them to launch the Truth in Credits campaign in October, a program designed to ensure that those doing the real work receive credit for their efforts.

Under the guild's guidelines, in order to receive on-screen credit, a producer must have decision-making power in one or more of four areas of filmmaking--development, preproduction, production or postproduction/marketing.

In the case of this year's Oscars, Academy spokesman Pavlik said that the executive branch took its cues from the PGA rules.

"They used the Producer's Guild investigative guidelines to decide the nominees," he said. "Obviously, we want the producers to be producers."

However, others in the Industry question the value of limiting the eligible producers, saying such a move could actually hurt those who deserve recognition.

"To say three producers is arbitrary," said New York-based entertainment attorney Howard Leib. "It may well be in most situations that's fine, but it also may be that you had more than three people who actually served the role as a producer. I'm not comfortable with an arbitrary number and if I'm representing the fourth person, I'd be extremely uncomfortable."

With the producer credits squared away, final Oscar ballots have been sent out to the 5,800-plus Academy voting members. The filled-out forms are due back Feb. 22, at which point accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers will tally the winners in time for Oscar's big bash on Feb. 27.