97 film scores were announced as eligible for consideration as best original score nominees for the 84th Academy Awards on December 22nd. Of those scores, there are the expected ones from previous nominees like John Williams (War Horse and The Adventures of Tintin), Thomas Newman (The Adjustment Bureau, The Debt, The Help and The Iron Lady), Alexandre Desplat (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:Part 2, and The Ides of March), and Michael Giacchino (Cars 2, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Monte Carlo, and Super 8).

Two of Desplat's scores, My Week with Marilyn and A Better Life, were disqualified under the arcane Academy's music division rules. In short, it amounts to either source music that is used or contributions from other composers that subtracts from the overall contribution of the primary composer. The number of songs in Drive apparently disqualifed the original music of Cliff Martinez, as did the use of songs in The Muppets prohibits Christoph Becker from competing in the category. The Academy used to have an original song score category, but it would only be used if there were a considerable number of films with original song scores released in a given year -- and that hasn't been the case for a long time.

Other scores disqualified were Soul Surfer, 50/50, and Attack the Block.Two other scores that will not be competing are two from composer Hans Zimmer, who disqualified himself from the competition earlier this year. The scores are from Rango and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Right now, The Holograph is predicting the following five films as this year's nominees:

     The Artist (Ludovic Bource)
     Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Alexandre Desplat)
     Hugo (Howard Shore)
     Jane Eyre (Dario Marianelli)
     War Horse (John Williams)