AMPAS Selects Best Visual Effects Candidates

Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS®) announced the seven contenders for Best Visual Effects in the 82nd Academy Awards®: Twentieth Century-Fox’s $400 million gamble, Avatar, Tri-Star’s alien allegory to Apartheid, District 9, Warner Bros. Pictures’ releases Terminator Salvation andHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Paramount Pictures’ rebooted Star Trek, DreamWorks’ Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and Columbia Pictures end-times film, 2012.

Members of the Visual Effects Branch of the Academy will screen 15-minute excerpts of each candidate film to pare the list down to three final nominees for Oscar® consideration.

The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

The 2009 Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, televised live by ABC.