Oscar bait success of summer blockbusters like "Jaws" and "Star Wars" (both of which had also been nominated for Best Picture), independent filmmakers refined Carr's methods of exploiting the Oscars. Merchant Ivory, who produced lavish costume dramas, often based on novels by Henry James or E. M. Forster, began to time their releases to align with the awards season. Their 1985 adaptation of Forster's "A Room with a View" won three of the eight Oscars it was nominated for. By 1991 the modern film-release calendar, in which studios released the movies they had the highest Oscar hopes for in autumn and December,
Howard Shore scores for "M. Butterfly" (another collaboration with Cronenberg), "Philadelphia" (his second collaboration with Jonathan Demme), and "Mrs. Doubtfire", directed by Chris Columbus. The latter two films were highly successful, "Philadelphia" winning Tom Hanks his first Oscar. Shore scored another three films in 1994: "The Client", "Ed Wood", and "Nobody's Fool". "Ed Wood" is notable for being one of the three films directed by Tim Burton that did not feature a score by Danny Elfman. Shore continued to score numerous films from 1995 to 2001, including two David Fincher films, "Seven" (1995) and "The Game" (1997), and "The Truth About Cats