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American Morning

Can Oscars Be Bought?

Aired March 08, 2002 - 09:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The "Big Question" this hour: can money buy an Oscar? With Hollywood's big night just a couple of weeks away, Oscar buzz has reached a fever pitch. Movie studios have been going all out since the nominees were revealed last month to try to capture the attention and the favor of Oscar voters. The ballots are due next week, so this weekend is the last chance to try to make a lasting impression.

Joining us now from Los Angeles, KTLA Entertainment Editor Sam Rubin -- hey Sam, how is it going?

SAM RUBIN, KTLA ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: Hey Anderson, good morning.

COOPER: I got to ask you, Academy Awards are March 24th, but it seems like every weekend now, there is some different award ceremony. How important have these things become?

RUBIN: Well, you know, they call this "award season," and it really is. It starts at the end of last year, as the final big Oscar movies come out, and this weekend, two major events. We start tomorrow night with the Directors' Guild, which could well be a very good night for Ron Howard. He is the only American nominee. Ron, of course, the director of "A Beautiful Mind," and this could bode particularly well, both for Ron Howard, and for the movie itself. The DGA is a pretty good Oscar precursor, the percentage of the directors who win the DGA award who go on to win the Oscar is pretty extraordinary. 90 percent of DGA winners go on to win the Oscar.

Then, from the director's guild, we go the following night to the Screen Actors' Guild award. SAG awards, 78 percent of the SAG winners go on to win the Oscar. It is a big weekend. And then, those are the events that are taking place. There have been several precursors. Every single craft unit in Hollywood gets together and has their own award, and to that end, I should say, "Moulin Rouge" has done extraordinarily well in all of these craft races.

So, it is wide open, and the studios are really trying to influence -- as you see, "Moulin Rouge" won from the Producers' Guild, the hair and makeup people, art directors, and editing. So, I would say, right now, the two big front runners are "Moulin Rouge" and "A Beautiful Mind."

COOPER: You said -- you mentioned the studios are trying to influence this stuff. You know, I have this -- I was reading "Hollywood Reporter." There is this 15-page ad, in "Hollywood Reporter," this is in "Hollywood Reporter," this is an ad for "Lord of the Rings." What are studios trying to do to get their movies out there.

RUBIN: What they are trying to do is really influence Academy voters primarily here in Hollywood, also in New York City. The local papers, the "New York Times," and the "Los Angeles Times" have huge ads every Friday.

The pull outs that are featured in the trades, and even these infomercials, where they will buy 30 minutes of commercial time talking about "A Beautiful Mind," or "In the Bedroom," or "Lord of the Rings," and run those on television stations in New York and LA, anything to get these 5,500 or so members of the Academy, who primarily live in Los Angeles or New York to -- well, sway their votes one way or the another. Look at that ad for "Lord of the Rings."

COOPER: That's amazing. I'd love to see some infomercial, like LaToya Jackson, promoting "Lord of the Rings." I think that would be -- that would be fun. There are also some whisper campaigns going on, people are talking about. What's that?

RUBIN: You know, people make this thought, Anderson, that it is not unlike a high school popularity contest, running for prom king or queen, I suppose. And to that end, there is a whispering campaign. What's really happened, this week in particular, is some are saying that gee, the subject of "A Beautiful Mind," the scientist John Nash, in real life is not a very nice guy, and perhaps the movie somewhat sugarcoated his personality and some of his problems, and those associated with the movie are saying, Look, the book revealing everything about John Nash came out three years ago. This movie has been in theaters for months.

Why are people revealing this now? They are revealing it now in an effort to discredit the movie and diminish its Oscar chances. Same thing happened, the Denzel Washington about Hurricane Carter, the fighter, "The Hurricane," that -- just as Oscar voting was taking place, people said, Gee, that movie had historical inaccuracies.

The whispering campaign against "A Beautiful Mind" has reached such a fever pitch that the head of the studio, Stacey Snider, in Los Vegas, at that big show west convention (ph), she complained about it, saying that it is selling the Oscar race, and movies should win on their merits, not on whether people complain about a particular film, what happened in real life or not.

COOPER: All right, interesting. Sam Rubin, we'll see if the whispering campaign worked. Thanks very much for joining us this morning.

RUBIN: All right, you bet.

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