Oscar contenders look a lot like last year’s

Spock and Kirk may have to wait for their Oscar.

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this summer that it was doubling its best picture nominees to 10, the move was seen by many as a way to boost television ratings by bringing more populist films into the fold.

The movie world reveled in the possibility that films far from the bleak tones of “No Country for Old Men” or “Million Dollar Baby,” which have won best picture in recent years, might prevail. Maybe superheroes in tights, the crew of “Star Trek” and the raunchy anti-heroes of “The Hangover” could waltz away with golden statuettes?

Maybe not.

As the annual campaign that Hollywood calls awards season goes into def-con mode -- the Golden Globes nominees will be named Tuesday, with others soon to follow -- the process appears rooted in familiar terrain.

According to interviews with about a dozen awards strategists, voters and studio executives, many of the lead contenders look the same as they have in recent years: dark, character-driven films that have garnered niche audiences, the type that have been blamed for the Oscars’ nearly annual ratings decline. Nor have the cost-conscious studios, despite a record box-office year, sent a gusher of money flowing into the awards industry in an effort to change the paradigm.

“There are people in the academy who saw [the expansion] as a chance to bring other kinds of movies into the fold,” said consultant Tony Angellotti, a two-decade veteran of the Oscar wars who currently handles Universal and Pixar films. “Instead it’s been an opportunity to recognize more of the same.”

In June, months after the Oscar telecast registered its third-lowest ratings in history, the academy decided, for the first time since 1943, to expand the best picture slots to 10. Many thought it would be a game-changer, benefiting blockbusters like “The Dark Knight,” the hugely popular and critically acclaimed Batman movie that was omitted from the best picture category last year. Viewership for the Oscar broadcast tends to increase when more moneymakers are in contention, and the academy earns the vast majority of its annual revenues from the telecast.

But at this point -- nominations are to be announced Feb. 2 -- many commercial films, such as the box office smash “Star Trek,” the male-comedy sensation “The Hangover,” the provocative sci-fi picture “District 9,” and the action-adventure “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” aren’t registering with a large number of Oscar voters. The biggest hit to generate Oscar buzz so far is the Disney-Pixar animated film “Up” -- a movie some experts say could have made the cut even if the academy had stuck with five slots.

The absence of tent-pole contenders can at least be partly attributed not only to voter reception but to studio strategizing.

“I think you can legitimately say that not many of the popcorn movies at this point have repositioned themselves as awards movies,” said awards expert Cynthia Swartz of public relations firm 42West. She said she believed that at least one or two broadly commercial films would make the best picture list in the end.

And James Cameron’s “Avatar,” it should be said, remains the huge Oscar X factor. Few voters or strategists have seen it yet (it opens Friday), but early reviews have been strong, and a group of tastemakers who viewed the 3-D science-fiction film Thursday night at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre were enthusiastic.

Although the film’s commercial future appears bright, the question remains whether voters will engage with it as an Oscar picture or simply as an enjoyable popcorn movie. Experts have volleyed arguments about its prospects: its epic scope, and the 11 Oscars that Cameron’s “Titanic” won in 1998, have been cited on its behalf, while the film’s heavy reliance on effects and its potentially cool reception among female voters have been wielded against it.

“Avatar” aside, awards handicappers’ short lists are mostly filled, as they have been for the last few years, with serious films: an inner-city drama (“Precious”), an Iraq war drama (“The Hurt Locker”), a “Masterpiece Theatre”-style period drama (“The Last Station”), a Midwestern suburban-religious drama (“A Serious Man”) and a Clint Eastwood-directed historical drama (“Invictus”).

Even the so-called comedy favorite, Jason Reitman’s travel tale “Up in the Air,” starring academy favorite George Clooney, has elements of a drama, with a recession plot line and a melancholy ending. (As happens every year, some prestige movies touted as Oscar-caliber in the fall saw their hopes slump as soon as they began screening for industry groups and the media; this year’s casualties apparently include Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones” and the Cormac McCarthy adaptation “The Road.”)

The expansion to 10 nominees is creating the most excitement among producers of art-house movies because, with their more limited audience base, these films stand to gain the most from awards recognition. And the studios behind those films know the odds are on their side. Independent productions have flourished at the Oscars in recent years -- witness the “Slumdog Millionaire” sweep -- fueling hope that one or more such films this year can ride the wave.

“Because there are 10 spaces, many, many films think they have a shot,” said Michael Barker, the co-chair of specialty studio Sony Pictures Classics.

“I think there’s a lot of activity in the marketplace, more than normal.”

Some art-house distributors have opted to rerelease films that came out earlier in the year, like “Bright Star,” to prompt Oscar interest. And some campaigns are accumulating consultants to help them land nominations: Lionsgate’s “Precious” has at least four strategists working on its campaign. Awards consultants are independent contractors with an expertise in influencing tastemakers and voters. The prices can vary depending on services, but many charge as much as $15,000 a month per film.

But for all the efforts, many movie studios are practicing a kind of recessionista flair. Instead of drowning Los Angeles in ads, studios are targeting specific academy voters with relatively low-cost screenings and Q&A’s; it’s hard to find a venue in town that hasn’t been graced by Eastwood, Reitman or Jeff Bridges (starring in “Crazy Heart”). And some studios, like Paramount, are opting to bring more awards activities in-house to tamp down on the cost of consultants.

“We can’t really spend ourselves silly chasing awards glory,” said a marketing executive at another studio who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearful of offending the talent on the studio roster.

“I remember the time,” Barker said, “when if you had a shot at best picture, people would be fighting over the cover [ad] of Variety every day. There’s less of that kind of aggression on the part of the companies to always go for the most expensive ad ever.”

Some campaigners this season are also seeking ways to avoid the costs of a straight-ahead Oscar party, which can be high. For a typical fete, a company might fly a star in on a private jet (as much as $40,000 a pop) and also provide hair and makeup ($5,000).

In some cases they’re throwing events that can double as awards shindigs, like the birthday party Fox chairman Jim Gianopulos hosted for Bridges, who conveniently turned 60 on Dec. 4.

“With the economic climate the way it is, people are focusing on what they really need,” said strategist Michele Robertson, discussing the general tenor of the race. “People are not throwing out this wide net and seeing what they get back. [The attitude] is ‘Let’s be mean and lean.’ ”

Chasing individual voters is a smart strategy this season. Vote-tally experts note that a film can score a best picture nomination if as few as 525 voters (less than 10% of the academy’s 5,777 members) choose it.

More important, intensity of feeling matters since, because of the vagaries of the academy’s voting rules, only the top few nominees on most ballots wind up being counted.

But all the fine-tuned strategy in the world may not yield results. No matter how much studios brainstorm every year, they’re up against a stubborn reality: One academy voter who conducts an annual survey of other voters discovered that many don’t bother to put more than one or two films on their nomination ballot.

steve.zeitchik@latimes.com

rachel.abramowitz@ latimes.com