A RIFT OVER RULES

Hans Zimmer announced earlier this year that he would no longer submit his scores for Oscar consideration. (“There were so many politics involved.”) But he got talked into it this year and submitted “The Dark Knight.”

It all went downhill from there.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences disqualified the score because Zimmer and co-composer James Newton Howard listed three others on the music cue sheets to protect those people’s royalties. While there is no rule limiting credits for a score, academy Executive Director Bruce Davis said, “They don’t even think of it as an award that can go to multiple people. If five or six guys did it, it’s hard to argue that anyone did something substantial.”

The three added to the cue sheets signed affidavits attesting that Zimmer and Howard were the primary composers. But, said Davis, that’s not enough. “They didn’t sign a letter saying, ‘We didn’t really write any of the music that is credited to us.’ ” The cue sheet, Zimmer insists, is simply about payment rather than an indication of ownership.

“I’m not prepared to bend on this idea that the music editor and my arrangers shouldn’t be part of profiting on this movie in perpetuity,” he said.

-- Michael Ordona