The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has issued its annual invitation list of new voting members. It has offered membership to 135 artists and executives.
Among the invitees this year is "Avatar" producer Jon Landau, who was passed over for an invitation after his "Titanic" swept the Oscars in 1998.
Landau (right, at the Oscars with Sigourney Weaver) told theWrap in March that his name had been submitted twice in the past, and he was rejected both times. “If they don’t invite me this year, that’s it,” he said, “I’m never going to join.”
Also on the list: "The Hurt Locker" nominee Jeremy Renner, whose inclusion was inadvertently revealed earlier this month at the Student Oscars, which Renner hosted.
Also invited were Oscar-nominated actors Carey Mulligan, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Mo'Nique and Christoph Waltz; directors Jacques Audiard and Lee Daniels; set decorator Kim Sinclair ("Avatar") in the art directors branch; animator Darragh O'Connell (short "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty"); cinematographers Barry Ackroyd ("The Hurt Locker") and Christian Berger ("The White Ribbon"); editors John Refoua ("Avatar") and Joe Klotz ("Precious"); and, in the music branch, producer T Bone Burnett ("Crazy Heart").
Invited to join the executives' branch were Christopher W. Aronson, Jim Berk, Philippe Dauman, Sheila DeLoach, Donald Peter Granger, Nathan Kahane, Andrew Karpen, Ryan Kavanaugh, David Kosse, David Andrew Spitz and Emma Watts.
An unusually large number of animators is included in this class of invitees, indicating the increasing importance of that genre in the movie business.
The text of the release, and the full list of those invited, follows:
Academy Invites 135 to Membership
Beverly Hills, CA — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 135 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures. Those who accept the invitation will be the only additions in 2010 to the Academy’s roster of voting members.
“The work of these individuals has been appreciated by moviegoers all around the world,” said Academy President Tom Sherak. “The Academy is proud to invite each and every one of them.”
The Academy’s membership policies would have allowed a maximum of 180 new members in 2010, but as in other recent years, the several branch committees endorsed fewer candidates than were proposed to them. Voting membership in the organization has now held steady at just under 6,000 members since 2003.
New members will be welcomed into the Academy at an invitation-only reception at the Academy’s Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study in Beverly Hills in September.
The 2010 invitees are:
Actors
Tobin Bell – “Saw,” “The Firm”
Vera Farmiga – “Up in the Air,” “The Departed”
Miguel Ferrer – “Traffic,” “RoboCop”
James Gandolfini – “In the Loop,” “Get Shorty”
Anna Kendrick – “Up in the Air,” “Twilight”
Mo’Nique – “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” “Phat Girlz”
Carey Mulligan – “An Education,” “Public Enemies”
Jeremy Renner – “The Hurt Locker,” “28 Weeks Later"
Ryan Reynolds – “The Proposal,” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”
LaTanya Richardson Jackson – “Mother and Child,” “Losing Isaiah”
Peter Riegert – “Traffic,” “Crossing Delancey”
Sam Robards – “A.I.
