Via LA Times:
Ten months ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was talking about constricting its best picture category back to five nominees, the standard in place from 1944 to 2008.
Now, The Times has learned, the academy, at a scheduled Board of Governors meeting on Tuesday, will consider making the Oscars’ best picture category a fixed slate of 10 nominees. This was the method used for two years in 2009 and 2010, before the academy moved to its current structure, which allows for a variable roster of five to 10 best picture nominees.
“It’s a knee-jerk response to this year’s #OscarsSoWhite controversy that, if enacted, won’t necessarily solve anything other than the academy’s current public relations disaster,” says one academy member who, because of the sensitive nature of the issue, asked not to be identified.