The five songs — including Tony Award-winning composer-lyricist Yeston's "Take It All" from "Nine" — will not get production numbers, according to Deadline.com, but "music from those songs will be interspersed with footage from each movie to provide more context." The trim comes in a year when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has doubled the number of Best Picture nominees (there are ten), which will eat up more time than ever in what is usually a three-hour-plus broadcast.

The news, not officially announced by the Academy, is ironic given that Shankman is a choreographer known for his film version of "Hairspray."

Yeston's competition in the category (Music – Original Song) is two songs by Randy Newman ("Almost There" and "Down in New Orleans") from "The Princess and the Frog"; a number from "Crazy Heart" ("The Weary Kind" by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett); and "Loin de Paname" from "Paris 36" (music by Reinhardt Wagner, lyric by Frank Thomas).