The Academy has broken its silence over a report that the cast of Straight Outta Compton were not invited to this year’s ceremony, which fueled further uproar over the #OscarsSoWhite controversy.
Oscar Voters Offer Theories on ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Best Picture Snub
“The Academy invites the nominees only, and each studio gets a limited ticket allotment, based on the number of nominated films, to use at their discretion. It has been this way for decades,” an Academy spokesperson tells PEOPLE exclusively.
While the number of tickets a studio gets is dependent on how many nominees they have in a given year, Academy members themselves have to enter a lottery to score them.
‘Straight Outta Compton’ and Nina Simone Documentary Earn Oscar Nods
This year, Universal Pictures – who distributed the movie – banked four Academy nominations including one for Straight Outta Compton‘s four writers, Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff, S. Leigh Savidge and Alan Wenkus, who are White, for the movie’s screenplay.
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