BREAKING: Shocking Academy Reversal - Eliminates Multi-City Rollout for Next Year's Oscar Docs

For the past couple of months, word has been building that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would streamline the requirements for next year's Oscar campaigns for Best Documentary Feature, but today, the Academy announced the rule changes, and they are a shocking reversal of the direction in which the Academy has been headed for the past several years.  For next year's Oscars, the Academy will eliminate the multi-city rollout requirements that led to must debate and discussion within the nonfiction community.  Documentary features must only play for seven days in both the county of Los Angeles and the Burough of Manhattan.

In a press release from the Academy, Documentary Branch Chairman Michael Apted said, "By eliminating the multi-city rollout requirements we have significantly simplified the Academy rules while still retaining the core intent to ensure that we honor nonfiction work created for theatrical distribution.  We believe the new rules will successfully eliminate from consideration documentaries made principally for television, the Internet or anywhere else.”

The full rules are available here.  Reaction and more comment coming soon.