The Oscars will be all about science fiction this year — at least, if you look at the Awards ceremony poster. It was painted by celebrated poster artist Drew Struzan, who also created posters for The Phantom Menace, designed the ILM Logo, and was designated by Spielberg as "the only artist who was allowed to paint E.T." Recently he painted artwork for the new Blade Runner: The Final Cut DVD, based on his original artwork from 1982 when the film came out. It's not surprising that his Oscar poster depicts the golden guy in a sea of stars. Check out some of Struzan's amazing work in our gallery and find out more below.
Struzan came to George Lucas' attention when he helped an artist friend who was uncomfortable with portrait work by painting the human figures on a Star Wars poster. Struzan stepped in and painted Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia on the "Star Wars Circus" poster, and that started his long career of painting movie posters for George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
You've probably seen his work dozens of times without realizing it. From Hellboy to Harry Potter to Back to the Future to The Thing, Struzan's been there. While we see the need for posters advertising the Academy Awards as about as necessary as a screen door on a deep-space cargo ship, it's cool that they're using an artist who loves and appreciates science fiction so much.
Academy unveils Oscar poster [Variety]