February 4, 2009, 7:20 pm L.A. Dispatch: A Little Oscar Pay to Play By Michael Cieply
On Oscar night, Peter Gabriel may see his song from "Wall-E" sandwiched between two from "Slumdog Millionaire." (Sandro Campardo/European Pressphoto Agency)Pay to play at the Oscars? Say it isn't so!!! Well, it is, a little. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has for some years asked the companies behind the nominated songs to help defray the cost of production numbers. A query to academy officials about just how long this has been going on drew no response. But it worked that way back in 2007, for instance, with the big numbers from "Dreamgirls," a movie which happened to be directed and written by Bill Condon, the current executive producer of the Oscar show. And it's going on this year, too, but with a twist. In and around Oscarland, a great debate is currently churning not just about what should be done with the songs in the refurbished Academy Awards show being produced by Mr. Condon and Lawrence Mark, but who should foot the bill. One plan being floated is to compress all three songs into a production number that could be as short as four minutes, according to people who are participating in the debate but spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their place at the table. Under this scenario, "Down to Earth," by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, from "Wall-E," could be wind up sandwiched between the two nominees from "Slumdog Millionaire," "Jai Ho" (by A. R. Rahman and Gulzar) and "O Saya," (by Mr. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam, a.k.a. M.I.A.) Mr. Gabriel's agent at the William Morris Agency declined to comment. Not everyone in the Walt Disney camp is thrilled at the idea of underwriting a truncated segment the total cost could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But that's OK, because not everyone in and around Fox Searchlight, which is distributing "Slumdog Millionaire" in the U. S., is eager to pay for a dual performance that would benefit owners of the soundtrack rights and worldwide film distributors as much as or more than Fox. On top of which, some in the Fox camp have figured out that Disney, at least, would be shoveling money in the direction of another Disney unit, ABC, which broadcasts the Oscars. As of Wednesday afternoon, it was still not clear who would be performing exactly how much of the songs, or who would pay. Now, aren't you glad you're not an Oscar producer? http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/la-dispatch-a- little-oscar-pay-to-play/
