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,
Oscar bait play and that neither of its stars had ever been nominated for an Academy Award before, whereas "The Wrestler" had several aspects often associated with Oscar bait: a sports movie with a character making a last-chance comeback, played by an actor making a comeback who physically transformed himself for the role. "The difference is the presumptive maleness," Harris reiterated. "[It] permanently exempts a director like Darren Aronofsky from charges of making Oscar bait, but consigns Ron Howard to that category for his whole career." "Critics of the phrase Oscar bait might tell you that making movies is already too difficult