The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences has announced that a spare set of Oscar statuettes will be held in a vault in advance of this year's ceremony on March 23. The move follows the theft of last year's batch which were later found near a dumpster by a bin man. In a further tightening of security, the Oscars will be transported by air to Los Angeles rather than by road.
The Academy has also asked its voting members not to take part in any polls and to keep their Oscar choices a secret. This follows a poll published in The Wall Street Journal last March, two days before the awards ceremony, which quizzed voters on their Oscar picks and correctly predicted four out of the five winners in key categories.
