On the eve of the debut of The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray, Patrick Goldstein at the LA Times claims that the AMPAS has decided to reverse its decision to disqualify Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's score for The Dark Knight from Oscar consideration. In November, the Academy ruled to disqualify the score because the cue sheets contained five names even though they were identified as contributors and included for royalty reasons. The Academy's music branch "sees this as an award, like cinematography or directing, where you want to award a single creator… Except for extraordinary circumstances, it's an award that should go to one person." Maybe this is one of those extraordinary circumstances?

Goldstein says that he has seen an Academy release saying that "its music branch executive committee voted to change the decision last Friday." While it's not officially confirmed by the Academy, Goldstein does seem quite confident that they have reversed their decision. Either this is just a big coincidence or a great last minute publicity stunt, because the new two-disc special edition of the soundtrack hits shelves tomorrow, along with the DVD/Blu-Ray. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of the new special edition soundtrack, because Zimmer and Howard deserve a bit of financial credit for their extraordinary work. And hopefully this news turns out to be true so that we can root for them next February at the Oscars!