Bad news for Princess and the Frog fans (of which there don’t seem to be nearly as many as Disney might have hoped), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has declared the film ineligible for Oscar's Best Original Score. As picked up by Deadline, they’ve ruled it out based on a rule which disqualifies scores which use “tracked themes or other preexisting music, diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs, or assembled from the music of more than one composer.”
What they’re not saying is which part of that rule The Princess and the Frog violates. In theory the entire score was written by Randy Newman who, last I checked, is not more than one composer.
Not to fear though, Disney still has four songs in consideration for Best Song and, frankly, that’s Princess’s strongest play anyway. The score is nothing special but when you consider that the only other real competition for Best Song is that horrible song pumped through the theater during Avatar’s credits, and the weak, weak stuff Rob Marshall brought to Nine, Princess and the Frog should be a strong contender.
