Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer and Grammy Award-winning songwriter and producer Pharrell Williams will serve as music consultants for the 84th Academy Awards, telecast producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer announced. This will be the first time the composers have worked on the Oscar show.

“Hans is one of the most accomplished and creative film composers of our time, and Pharrell is a phenomenal songwriter with an amazing list of credits,” said Grazer and Mischer. “This is an exciting and prestigious collaboration that promises to take the audience on a musical journey.”

“It is a great privilege to serve the Academy in this role and to help celebrate and honor this year’s incredible artistry,” stated Zimmer. ”I am honored to work with my mentor and teacher, Hans Zimmer and I have wanted to collaborate with Brian Grazer on something for years,” said Williams. “I cannot believe I will be joining them and their teams on the most prestigious show of the year, the Academy Awards.”

Zimmer won an Oscar in 1994 for Original Score for “The Lion King” and has received eight additional nominations for Original Score. He has earned 10 Grammy nominations and won four.

Williams is a prolific producer-singer-songwriter who has also written for feature films. He has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards and has won three. Williams’ songs have appeared on the soundtracks of such films as “Any Given Sunday,” “Kiss of the Dragon,” “Zoolander,” and “Knocked Up.” He wrote the original song score for “Despicable Me.”

Other news about the biggest night for Hollywood – Denny Clairmont, John Hora, Bob Lambert and Milt Shefter have accepted invitations to join the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, bringing the Council’s 2011–2012 membership roster to 24.

Clairmont, one of the industry’s premier motion picture camera technologists, co-founded Clairmont Camera, a camera rental company that has grown into one of the largest in the world. In 2010 he received the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation for “outstanding service and dedication in upholding the high standards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.”

A member of the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Committee since 1993, Clairmont also has served for several years on numerous subcommittees. He has been an Academy member since 2002. Hora has been a member of the Academy’s Cinematographers Branch since 1986.

As a senior executive of The Walt Disney Company for more than 20 years, Lambert has been a leader in the transition to digital technologies in film, television, gaming, social media and emerging consumer media. He initiated the company’s successful collaboration with Pixar and oversaw the development of new digital production processes such as the “CAPS” system for feature animation, which was recognized with a Scientific and Engineering Award in 1991. Lambert has been an Academy member since 1999.

Shefter, a film preservationist and president of Miljoy Enterprises, is best known for the creation, design and management of the extensive Paramount Pictures Asset Protection Program, including construction of state-of-the-art archival facilities worldwide. He was the project lead for the Academy reports The Digital Dilemma and the upcoming Digital Dilemma 2, due out next month. He has been an Academy member since 1989.

Established in 2003 by the Academy’s Board of Governors, the Science and Technology Council provides a forum for the exchange of information, promotes cooperation among diverse technological interests within the industry, sponsors publications, fosters educational activities and preserves the history of science and technology of motion pictures.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 84th Academy Awards. One hundred twenty-four pictures had originally qualified in the category.

The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production company:

• “Battle for Brooklyn” (RUMER Inc.)
• “Bill Cunningham New York” (First Thought Films)
• “Buck” (Cedar Creek Productions)
• “Hell and Back Again” (Roast Beef Productions Limited)
• “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front” (Marshall Curry Productions, LLC)
• “Jane’s Journey” (NEOS Film GmbH & Co. KG)
• “The Loving Story” (Augusta Films)
• “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory” (@radical.media)
• “Pina” (Neue Road Movies GmbH)
• “Project Nim” (Red Box Films)
• “Semper Fi: Always Faithful” (Tied to the Tracks Films, Inc.)
• “Sing Your Song” (S2BN Belafonte Productions, LLC)
• “Undefeated” (Spitfire Pictures)
• “Under Fire: Journalists in Combat” (JUF Pictures, Inc.)
• “We Were Here” (Weissman Projects, LLC)

The Documentary Branch Screening Committee viewed all the eligible documentaries for the preliminary round of voting. Documentary Branch members will now select the five nominees from among the 15 titles on the shortlist.

The 84th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 24, 2012, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

The Academy could also announce that the Academy Award-winning production designer John Myhre will design the 84th Academy Awards. This will be the first time Myhre has served as production designer for the Oscars.

“John is a prolific production designer, who has created some of the most intriguing sets that we’ve ever seen,” said Brian Grazer and Don Mischer. “His cinematic perspective will be a great contribution to our team dynamic and the show itself.”

Myhre won Academy Awards in the Art Direction category in 2002 for Chicago and in 2005 for Memoirs of a Geisha. He has three additional Oscar nominations for his work on Elizabeth (1998), Dreamgirls (2006) and Nine (2009). Myhre’s other production design credits include Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Wanted, Ali and X-Men.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live by the ABC Television Network.

The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

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Eddie Murphy, who was announced as the official presenter of the Oscar in 2012, resigned his position on Wednesday November 9th. Murphy left one day after Brett Ratner, a producer for the awards show, quit after using offensive terms in a press conference for his latest  comedy, Tower Heist, which also features Eddie Murphy.

In a press release on Wednesday, President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Tom Sherak, released an understanding and charismatic statement about Murphy’s departure by saying: “I appreciate how Eddie feels about losing his creative partner, Brett Ratner, and we all wish him well.”

Murphy also justified his actions and publicly stated that: “First and foremost I want to say that I completely understand and support each party’s decision with regard to a change of producers for this year’s Academy Awards ceremony,.”

“I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I’m sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job,” Eddie added.

The problem first occurred during a session of questions and answers in the press conference of Ratner’s new movie. When the producer was asked about rehearsal sessions, he replied: “rehearsing is for fags,” the L.A. Times reported.

As if that were not enough, in one of his previous appearances, Ratner had the audacity to report having sexual intercourse with the model Olivia Munn. Although he later apologized and confessed to have lied, the statement hit the public causing a polemic shock.

Ratner publicly apologized for his actions and word choices, but groups of gay rights advocates and a few members of the Academy that are also responsible for organizing the Oscars, found his usage of the expression “fag’’ inexcusable.

The producer gave his letter of resignation on the morning of Tuesday. Academy President Tom Sherak accepted Ratner’s letter of resignation and further added: “He did the right thing for the Academy and for himself’. Billy Crystal has officially been selected to substitute Eddy Murphy and will host the 2012 Oscars.

Crystal, who has hosted the award eighth times tweeted, “Am doing the Oscars so the young woman in the pharmacy will stop asking my name when I pick up my prescriptions. Looking forward to the show,” Brian Grazer was chosen to replace Brett Ratner and to be the official producer of the ceremony.

The 84th annual Academy Awards ceremony will be held on February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California.

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Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer is one of a handful of filmmakers with the intuitive ability to pair Brett Ratner, the action-savvy director with a string of box-office hits to his name, and a high-profile cast led by comedy superstars Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy to deliver Tower Heist, an action-comedy that scales new heights.

The producer shares how the project began: “Eddie and I have worked with one another since we filmed Boomerang in the early ’90s. In 2005, he pitched an idea to Brett and me to develop a film with a number of comedians playing guys who were down on their luck, the genesis of Tower Heist.

He wanted to create a movie with characters that were not the cool, slick guys. His idea was that the story would follow a group of disgruntled employees in a building like the Trump Tower who seize their chance and plan a robbery. Naturally, everything that could possibly go wrong with their ill-conceived plans did.”

From inception to the first day of principal photography, it would take almost five years before the film would fire on all cylinders. Grazer, Ratner and Murphy were in no rush, however, as they wanted to make sure that the project was tonally perfect.

Murphy says of the man with whom he’s worked on blockbuster hits such as The Nutty Professor and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps: “Brian has been my biggest collaborator throughout my career. We have similar sensibilities when it comes down to what a good movie is and the types of movies we’re trying to make.

We have a shorthand communication where I can tell him one of my ideas and he can help shape it into a screenplay.” Since Murphy’s pitch to Grazer and Ratner in ’05, several incarnations of the project have come about. The development process has been a lengthy one, but the three men agreed that the film that they ultimately wanted to make should seamlessly blend comedy and action.

Grazer and Murphy found Ratner to be the perfect partner to helm Tower Heist and liked the fact that he would work with Ocean’s Eleven screenwriter Ted Griffin and Catch Me If You Can writer Jeff Nathanson to hone the earlier work of Accepted scribes Adam Cooper and Bill Collage.

Ratner reflects upon how Tower Heist’s writers nailed the tone of the film he would direct: “Ted brought the real motivation and the heart to the concept, and then when Jeff came on, he came up with the obstacles, complexities and the specificities of these characters.” He feels that the time is ideal for this story to unfold and states: “It’s about the upstairs and the downstairs and working-class, blue-collar workers just trying to get by who were robbed.

They’re taking it back from not just the rich, but the corrupt rich. That’s why you’re cheering for and rooting for these characters. You want them to win.” The director, who is equally comfortable with the comedy genre as he is with action, shares something unique with Murphy: both are film aficionados who possess encyclopedic recall of scenes from classic Hollywood and foreign films.

However, it was Ratner’s deep affinity for the heist movies of the 1970s — from The Taking of Pelham One Two Three to The Hot Rock and The Anderson Tapes — that most attracted him to Tower Heist. “What works about our movie is that it walks that line between drama and comedy very well,” he offers.

“Nobody’s playing these characters with a wink; everyone’s playing them incredibly serious. The comedy naturally comes from the characters and the situations that they’re put into.”

For Ratner, the opportunity to direct a comedy icon was one he didn’t hesitate to grab. He offers: “I grew up watching all of Eddie’s films and studying them, so the chance to work with him was a dream come true. Not only was this movie Eddie’s idea, but in a lot of ways, he invented the genre. If it wasn’t for him, my Rush Hour series would never have existed.”

Murphy, pleased to see that the project was coming full circle, joined Grazer and fellow Imagine executive Kim Roth on Tower Heist as a producer on the film. He shares: “Brian and the studio kept developing it and wanted to make it more about one character instead of a group of comedians, and a great script came together.

They called me and let me know that Ben Stiller wanted to do the movie and that there was this role in it that’s really cool. I read it and thought it was funny. Plus, I’m trying to work with Brett as much as possible.”

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The new movie Tower Heist, about a group of high rise staff members who plot to steal back their pensions from a unscrupulous Wall Streeter, mixes comedy and action with insightful social commentary, coupled with an empowering Robin Hood spirit.

It jump-starts the tale of newly disenfranchised who would be driven to commit a high-stakes robbery. The writers tapped into the battered U.S. economy, whose financial meltdown occurred amidst charges of corporate mismanagement, record high unemployment and financiers defrauding their clients.

They infused the material with a timeliness that made the premise all the more powerful and gave the ensemble cast much material to use. Outside the top billers, Tower Heist sports an interesting collection of supporting cast.

Michael Peña, who portrays bellhop/elevator operator Dev’Reaux, the newest member of The Tower staff, appreciated this ripped-from-the-headlines aspect of the film. Dev’Reaux’s freewheeling attitude rubs Josh the wrong way but also makes him a go-to guy to be a part of the heist crew.

“I love this story,” Peña states, “between the financial meltdown, unemployment and government bailouts, the little guy finally gets to have his day. To be able to get it done on their own terms with their everyday skills makes it that much sweeter for the crew.

I had family affected by the economic downturn while I was reading the script, so as much as Tower Heist is a big action-comedy, there’s an underlying anticipation to see it all play out.” Ben Stiller elaborates on Peña’s character: “We meet Dev’Reaux, who is brand new at the job and a likeable street guy, but puts his foot in his mouth a lot.

He doesn’t understand the hierarchy of how you’re supposed to deal with the tenants and gets under Josh’s skin, but Josh needs him, so he brings him onto the heist team.” Academy Award nominee Gabourey Sidibe follows up her highly acclaimed dramatic debut in Precious to play the role of Odessa Montero, a feisty Jamaican-born maid who works in The Tower while trying to secure her green card.

As the daughter of a locksmith, she possesses skills that prove to be invaluable to the team when the heist is devised. Though the Harlem-bred Sidibe conferred with a safecracker to refine her technique, she constructed her character by looking a little closer to home. “The thing about Odessa is that she is Jamaican,” she says.

“I am not Jamaican, but some of my friends are so I brought their blunt, quick-witted sass to Odessa.” The actress laughs, “I’ve been teasing them our entire friendship, so it was nice to honor them on camera.” Brett Ratner, the director, loved being able to introduce audiences to a very different side of the young woman who blew filmgoers away in her very first dramatic role.

Still, he admits: “I needed an actress to be able to stand toe-to-toe with Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller, somebody with a strong personality. Gabby is a breath of fresh air. She walks in the room, and everybody just gravitates to her. She’s pathologically positive, happy and smart.

She’s always got something witty to say. She’s constantly cracking a joke or whispering something in your ear to make you laugh.” The project gained further momentum with the casting of legendary actor Judd Hirsch, who rejoins his producer from A Beautiful Mind for this film.

Cast as Mr. Simon, Josh’s boss who fires several of his employees when they destroy Shaw’s car, Hirsch admits that he has a lot of sympathy for Josh, played by Ben Stiller. “I love Ben’s part. You don’t usually see parts like that. They’re usually banal or immune, but Josh is concerned with the lives of others and is always trying to get somebody straightened out.

But he’s the one who takes the fall. He’s trying to get something for everybody in a beneficial way. He’s Mr. Justice, and then has to go and pay the price.” “Judd is one of those talents who has spent the past four decades creating complex, memorable characters,” offers producer Brian Grazer.

“From his unforgettable roles on television shows like Taxi and Dear John to his stunning performances in movies from Ordinary People to A Beautiful Mind, he’s one of the most memorable performers working today. You see the conflict in his character’s eyes as he has to play the heavy and get rid of those who were involved with the vigilante behavior in Shaw’s apartment. We were thrilled to have him.”

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At the heart of Tower Heist is a ragtag group—a building manager with a score to settle, a desperate Wall Streeter on the verge of bankruptcy, a cash-strapped concierge whose wife is expecting their first child, a bellhop up for any adventure and a feisty maid hoping to stay in the country—looking to recoup their looted pensions.

Alongside a petty criminal looking for quick cash, they are ready to do what needs to be done to get the cash. The talented ensemble has a few aces up its sleeve as two names stand out in the roll call to elevate the material; the enigmatic Casey Affleck and veteran Matthew Broderick.

Casey Affleck, who portrays Charlie, Ben Stiller’s charachter Josh’s not-so-savvy (and broke) brother-in-law who works as The Tower’s concierge, cut his teeth on the heist genre as Virgil Malloy in Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven series. Still, he knew the promise of working with Stiller, Eddie Murphy and director Brett Ratner was reason enough to revisit the genre.

Affleck notes “More than anything else, I just like Ben, Eddie and Brett, and it sounded like a fun film to do. I wanted to do a comedy, and I thought this was an opportunity to try and be funny.” With a wife on the verge of going into labor, Charlie is reluctant to join Josh’s crew of amateur thieves.

Producer Brian Grazer felt that Affleck, with his deadpan timing, was perfect for the part. “Casey continues to impress me with the fascinating choices he has made in his career,” offers the producer. “He is so droll, that with a slight vocal inflection or delivery of a minor tic, he can elicit a great number of laughs.

The fact that Casey has experience in the world of heist movies made him even more perfect for the job.” Matthew Broderick came aboard Tower Heist to portray Mr. Fitzhugh, a Wall Streeter who has suffered his own financial hardships and whose quarters in the ritzy building have been foreclosed.

Despite the dire circumstances, the self-professed squatter is a financier to the core and knows the tricks of his former trade. “Fitzhugh needs the money, and greed becomes his primary motivation,” explains Broderick. “That’s one thing I like about the caper movies from the 1970s like The Anderson Tapes. They really wanted the money or jewels or art. Fitzhugh’s mindset harkens back to that.”

For Ratner, the chance to work with the veteran actor was another reason to be excited about showing up for work every day.  He says: “When I was 12, Matthew Broderick was the biggest movie star next to Eddie Murphy, literally. I grew up on Matthew, and to have him play Fitzhugh was a great honor. I couldn’t believe that he was on my set sitting next to Eddie, Ben and all of these other great actors.”

Murphy shares his director’s assessment of the veteran stage and screen performer. He compliments, “Everybody in the cast is funny and likeable, and you want everybody in the cast to win. Matthew Broderick is one of my contemporaries. We came up around the same time. I’ve seen everything that he’s done, and it was great to be on a set with a master actor.”

You can watch Tower Heist in cinema on November 4.

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Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy lead an all-star cast in Tower Heist, an action-comedy about a staff of blue-collar workers who seek revenge on the Wall Street swindler who stiffed them. After the crew at the luxury Central Park condominium The Tower discover the penthouse billionaire has stolen their retirement, they plot the ultimate revenge: a heist to reclaim what he took from them.

Queens native Josh Kovaks (Stiller) has managed one of the most luxurious and well-secured residences in New York City for more than a decade. Under his watchful eye, nothing goes undetected. In the swankiest unit atop Josh’s building, Wall Street titan Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) is under house arrest after being caught stealing $2 billion from his investors. The hardest hit among those he defrauded? The Tower staffers whose pensions he was entrusted to manage.

With only days until Shaw gets away with the perfect crime, Josh’s crew turns to petty crook Slide (Murphy) to plan the nearly impossible: steal the $20 million they are sure is hidden in the heavily guarded condo where Shaw is being held by an FBI team led by Special Agent Claire Denham (Tea Leoni, Fun With Dick and Jane).

The burglary takes place in the midst of one of New York City’s most iconic events: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Integrating the decades-old tradition into the story line was a daunting task that had the cast and crew re-creating the parade one week after the original. But to ensure that they fully captured the one-of-a-kind magic that only the real parade could provide, dozens of crew members gave up their Thanksgiving weekend to film portions of the actual parade on Columbus Circle.

Native New Yorkers Stiller, Alda, Leoni, Broderick and Sidibe had their own memories of attending the parade, while other members of the crew vividly recall watching the parade on television.  However, the production’s ambitious re-creation was awe-inspiring for the team.

“When I was a kid, my family would go to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and it was hard to get close,” says Leoni. “To be able to have front-row seats, so to speak, for even a portion of the parade, where I could take a look at all the balloons, was amazing.  It was much cooler than it was when I was a kid.”

Ratner agrees with his film’s hard-nosed agent: “I knew that the building that is the center of Tower Heist is a main character in the film, and I wanted all the action around this centerpiece. The shots of the Thanksgiving Day Parade that we captured were just incredible.

Though amateurs, these rookie thieves — including high-strung concierge Charlie (Casey Affleck, Ocean’s Eleven trilogy), broke ex-Wall Streeter Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick, The Producers), rookie bellhop Dev’Reaux (Michael Peña, Battle: Los Angeles) and feisty maid Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe, Precious) — know the building better than anyone. It turns out they’ve been casing the place for years…they just didn’t know it.

Director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour series, X-Men: The Last Stand, Red Dragon) joins Academy Award^®-winning producer Brian Grazer (8 Mile, A Beautiful Mind, American Gangster) to lead a talented behind-the-scenes crew for Tower Heist. Grazer is joined in production duties on the action-comedy by Eddie Murphy and Kim Roth (Inside Man, Insomnia).

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