DreamWorks; NibarikiGNDHDDT/Disney; Disney/Pixar; Twentieth Century Fox

Now here's a Balloon Boy Hollywood can really get behind. As expected, Up leads the record 20 eligible films for the Best Animated Feature Oscar at the 82nd Academy Awards.

Disney-Pixar's latest instant-classic, which is also aspiring for a Best Picture nod, seems a lock for one of the five animation slots when the nominations are announced on Feb. 2.

Jockeying for the other four will be intense. Japanese master and previous Academy Award winner Hayao Miyazaki hopes for some Oscar bait with the acclaimed hand-drawn Ponyo, about a goldfish who wants to be a little girl.

But he'll need to ward off a slew of big-budget, big-box-office, big-studio submissions, including DreamWorks Animation's Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Monsters vs. Aliens, 20th Century Fox's Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Universal's stop-motion creepfest Coraline, and a couple other Disney efforts: the Jim Carrey-powered A Christmas Carol and the Mouse House's  return to traditional hand-drawn fare, The Princess and the Frog, due out Dec. 11.

Another forthcoming film that has a shot is Fantastic Mr. Fox, quirkmeister Wes Anderson's first foray into animation, a stop-motion adaptation of the Roald Dahl featuring voice work by George Clooney and Meryl Streep.

Get the complete list of qualifying films after the jump.

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Disney

Holiday movie season and high Oscar season have kicked off. But only one is kicking mistletoe.

While Jim Carrey's A Christmas Carol led a bah-humbug weekend with an underwhelming $31 million, per estimates, the Oprah Winfrey- and Tyler Perry-backed award-show contender Precious grossed a stunning $1.8 million at only 18 theaters.

Elsewhere, Michael Jackson's This Is It did its thing (solid $14 million here, bigger $29 million overseas), George Clooney's The Men Who Stare at Goats ($13.3 million) did better than expected for a movie with goats and George Clooney in it, and Cameron Diaz's The Box ($7.9 million) just didn't really open. 

A look inside the numbers:

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ABC/Tim Ogier; Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank via AP Images; AMPAS

It's months away, but the Oscars are already Rocking our world.

In the latest effort to return Hollywood's biggest night to must-see-TV status, the powers that be have tapped Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin to cohost the 82nd Annual Academy Awards next year.

The ceremony takes place March 7, 2010, at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre.

"I am happy to cohost the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin," Martin, who hosted the ceremony solo in 2001 and 2003, said in a statement.

"I don't play the banjo but I'm thrilled to be hosting the Oscars—it's the opportunity of a lifetime," added Baldwin, a veteran movie star and past nominee who just collected his second straight Emmy for being freakin' hilarious on 30 Rock.

Our sides are hurting already. 

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Monty Brinton/CBS

Hugh Jackman's out. Ricky Gervais is taken. Neil Patrick Harris is moving up the Academy Awards' invite list.

Not so fast on that last one.

On Friday, we asked Las Vegas' own Oscar handicapper Johnny Avello for his take on who'll be the awards show's next host. Avello, director of sports race and sports operations for the Wynn and Encore hotels, kindly complied with a hot-off-the-presses line.

When we first took a look, we were surprised. And not because the favorite of favorites is a dark horse. Because it—or rather, he—isn't. At all. Let's just say if Avello's right, your next Oscars telecast is going to be a blast from the past.

And not a blast from the Emmys by way of the Tonys. (Sorry, NPH.)

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ABC/BRETT RATNER

Hugh Jackman would like to thank the Academy, but no thanks.

Despite his critically (the gig garnered several Emmy nominations) and publicly (he breathed new life and viewers into the ratings sinkhole) acclaimed Oscars hosting stint last spring, the Aussie actor will not be returning to the podium for the 2010 telecast.

Jackman's quiet exit doesn't mean he won't one day become this generation's Billy Crystal. His rep confirmed to E! News that he has not ruled out a return to the Oscar stage, but just didn't want to emcee for two consecutive years.

Fair enough. After all, how are we supposed to realize how good this is until we spend a year without it?

No frontrunner has emerged to fill Jackman's sizable song-and-dance shoes, but with one obvious fill-in, Ricky Gervais, suddenly bringing new buzz to the Golden Globes, the Academy better bring out the big guns.

So…Stephen Colbert, Neil Patrick Harris, Conan O'Brien, Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres, uh, Robert Pattinson…who would you like to see host the 82nd Annual Academy Awards when they return March 7?

________

You know what movie's already getting Oscar buzz? You do now.

WELBOURNE, SCOTTY/ZUMA Press

And the Oscar goes to...November.

In the latest effort to shake up tradition and make the Oscar show more viewer-friendly, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced it will hand out this year's honorary Oscars months ahead of time, at an inaugural Governors Ball on Nov. 14.

Recipients include producer-turned-studio head John Calley, who will receive the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award; legendary actress Lauren Bacall; B-movie master Roger Corman; and cinematographer Gordon Willis.

Let the scramble for broadcasting rights begin!

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Francois Duhamel/ TWC 2009

Every movie, or so the Comic-Con saying goes, looks like a hit at Comic-Con.

"There is a lot of enthusiasm," Cameron Diaz confirms to us before we're scolded by a flack for not abiding by our place in the press line. (Sorry, we got a bit enthusiastic.)

OK, so that's a yes on enthusiasm. But what about Oscar buzz? Does enthusiasm translate into nominations? Are there movies being hyped in San Diego that are going to be as hot as a Comic-Con swag bag come the Academy Awards?

Our findings (that, to give you fair warning, may not necessarily appease "Team Cullen" T-shirt wearers):

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Jaime Trueblood/ DreamWorks Pictures

Now that the Oscars has expanded its Best Picture field to 10 films, things are going to get Cocoa Puffs crazy: The Hangover and Paul Blart for Best Picture; Transformers' Megan Fox for Best Actress.

Er, right…?

Wrong, say the Vegas oddsmaker, the Industry exec and the film professor we touched base with regarding the Academy's new big-tent policy.

"The notion of an Academy Award movie isn't going to be changed," Christine Birch, president of marketing for DreamWorks said.

Here's what that means to the Class of 2009's hopefuls:

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Jeff Vespa/Getty Images; Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images; Todd Williamson/Getty Images; George Pimental/Getty Images; Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Seth Rogen and James Franco have taken the pineapple express to Oscar credibility.

As if expanding the Best Picture nominee pool and potentially nixing the Best Song category wasn't enough to modernize the usually staid Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, surely its welcoming of cinema's preeminent bong jokesters is.

Rogen and Franco are two of 134 new artists and movie industry executives who have been extended invitations to join the Academy and, in doing so, secure voting rights for all future Oscar ceremonies beginning in 2010.

The smokin' Pineapple Express duo are joined by fellow Judd Apatow repertory players Michael Cera, Paul Rudd and Jane Lynch, along with Casey Affleck, Viola Davis, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Taraji P. Henson, James McAvoy, Tyler Perry, Danny Boyle, Emile Hirsch, Michelle Williams, Amy Ryan, Slumdog soundtracker A.R. Rahman, Peter Gabriel, Tom Cruise's producing partner-in-crime, Paula Wagner, Milk man Dustin Lance Black and Mr. Oscar himself, Hugh Jackman.

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Disney Pixar; Courtesy of Paramount Pictures; Peter Mountain/Universal Studios; Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures; AMPAS

It's a year too late for The Dark Knight, but maybe those Hangover guys will have something extra special to celebrate.

This year's Best Picture field will be expanded to 10 contenders, the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today.

The move could mean typically overlooked genres like sci-fi, comedy and animation could get a crack at the big prize—and could spell good news for this year's biggest hits, Star Trek, The Hangover and Up.

While the Best Picture category, like the rest of the Oscar fields, has traditionally been limited to five nominees in recent decades, it hasn't always been so.

During the early years of the Oscars, there were 10 (and sometimes more) nominees, up until Casablanca beat back nine rivals at the 16th Academy Awards at the 1943 ceremony.

Today's announcement comes as the Academy continues to mark the 70th anniversary of "Hollywood's Greatest Year"—1939 saw the release of such classic films as Best Picture winner Gone With the Wind, along with fellow Oscar nominees The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Ninotchka, Dark Victory, Love Affair, Of Mice and Men, Wuthering Heights, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

Nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards will be announced Feb. 2, 2010, with the ceremony set March 7.

(Originally published June 24, 2009, at 10:35 a.m. PT)