Warner Bros.’ last minute decision to open Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby in December, 2004 instead of February, 2005 threw a monkey wrench in everyone’s Oscar forecast this year.

Up to that point, the front-runners had been Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator; Marc Foster’s Finding Neverland and Alexander Payne’s Sideways with some prognosticators even predicting unlikely wins for Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset.

The wisdom of Warner Bros.’ decision to throw Million Dollar Baby into the race so late in the game was questioned when other films picked up many of the early awards.  Finding Neverland won the National Board of Review award and Sideways won the New York Film Critics Award.  Million Dollar Baby did seem like it could be a serious Oscar contender after all when it won both the Los Angeles Film Critics and National Society of Film Critics awards, but it was back to early favorite Sideways for the Broadcast Film Critics and the Golden Globe for Musical or Comedy.  The Aviator won its first major award as the pick of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for its Golden Globe for Drama.

Best Director honors were all over the place.  All of the major precursors split their awards signaling perhaps that no one was 100% behind any film this year.  The National Board of Review named Michel Mann Best Director for Collateral.  The Los Angeles Film Critics picked Alexander Payne for Sideways while their New York counterparts picked Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby.  The National Society of Film Critics went with Zhang Yimou for two films, House of Flying Daggers and Hero.  The Broadcast Film Critics went with Martin Scorsese for The Aviator while the Golden Globe went to Eastwood.

Eastwood, Scorsese, Payne and Foster were all nominated by the Directors Guild with Taylor Hackford along for the ride for Ray.  Eastwood won.

Oscar once again agreed with four of the DGA’s picks: Eastwood, Scorsese, Payne and Hackford, but chose Vera Drake’s Mike Leigh over Finding Neverland’s Marc Foster.  Would Best Picture line up with the Academy’s Best Director slate?  No, as it often does, it lined up instead with the DGA’s slate with Finding Neverland finding itself nominated alongside Million Dollar Baby; The Aviator; Sideways and Ray.

So, once again, we ask what would the other five nominees have been had Oscar gone to a ten film roster?

Certainly Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake and Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda, both of which were nominated for three Oscars would have made the cut.  Also likely, Bill Condon’s Kinsey which was shockingly only nominated for one Oscar and cult favorite Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which was nominated for two and won one.

The tenth slot is anyone’s guess but mine is that it would be Michael Mann’s Collateral, which was nominated for two other awards.

Finally, of course, Warner Bros. last minute Million Dollar Baby strategy paid off big time, winning four of its seven nominations – all major ones – Picture, Director, Actress (Hilary Swank) and Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman).