Once upon a time it seemed that movies just needed one producer to get filmed. Back in the day, David O. Selznick would get his Oscar for producing Gone with the Wind and trot out the next year to pick up an award for Rebecca.

Nowadays it seems that a small army of producers is required to make even the smallest independent films. In the meantime, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided there were too many people crowding the podium to take credit for producing the Best Pictures. Last year, Bob Yari had to settle for a shout out when Crash won.

This year, a group of twenty producers decided Brad Gray, one of the four credited producers on The Departed could not go onstage if the film won. There is now a limit of three producers per film according to current Oscar rules. A Reuters report seems to indicate professional jealousy on the part of other producers due to Gray’s position not only as the producer of one Oscar nominated film, but also the CEO and chairman of Paramount, which has Babel up for the Best Picture Oscar as well.

If “The Departed” wins, only Graham King will be allowed to take the award while the other producers with on-screen credits, Gray, Martin Scorsese, and some guy named Brad Pitt will have to settle for applauding from their seats. In addition to being behind the scenes on two films up for Best Picture, Gray will get to watch Sherry Lansing, the production chief he replaced at Paramount, get the Thalberg Award for humanitarian
services.

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