The Dark Knight‘s score is so catchy – we haven’t been able to stop whistling that abstract discordant screech for months.

So when we heard that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had banned the score to The Dark Knight from Oscar eligibility on a technicality, we were furious – it was easily the biggest Oscars outrage since Geri Halliwell‘s turn in The Fat Slags didn’t win Best Supporting Actress in 2004.

But the good news is that the Academy has reversed its decision – now The Dark Knight‘s score can lose to the Alvin & The Chipmunks OST like nature intended.

In these times of trouble, it’s only right that the big winner at next year’s Oscars should be a dark, sprawling, dense epic where nobody can easily be defined as good or evil. Sadly, however, Ace Ventura Jr wasn’t released theatrically, so maybe it’ll have to be The Dark Knight instead.

For a whole host of reasons – including the scale of ambition, the sophistication of storytelling, the box office totals, the death of Heath Ledger and the fact that most people would rather stick a shotgun under their chin than watch another film about Sean Penn weeping at injustice – The Dark Knight is slowly emerging as something of an Oscars frontrunner.

It seems like there isn’t an Oscars category that The Dark Knight won’t do well in, aside from two. The first is Best Actor – unless there’s a new subcategory this year entitled Best Actor With A Voice That Sounds Like A Brick In A Blender, of course, in which case it stands a pretty good chance – and the second is Best Score.

Or at least it was. A month ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided that it was going to ban Hans Zimmer’s score for The Dark Knight because it made the mistake of listing everyone who contributed music to the movie to its cue sheet instead of just the principle composers.

It was a double slap in the face for Zimmer and The Dark Knight, not just because of the innovative, cutting-edge nature of the soundtrack, but because the score’s lead single – Disturbing Machine Buzzing Drone Number Four – has been number one in the hit parade around the world for almost two solid months now.

So let’s all be thankful that the academy has finally decided to reverse its decision and include it on the ballot once and for all, as Reuters reports:

After reviewing the submission, [the academy] concluded that Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard were the main composers and deemed the duo’s work for Warner Bros.’ Batman blockbuster as eligible. The academy said that since ballots had not been mailed, the decision would not affect the voting process.

That’s wonderful news. It’s encouraging to see that the academy is able to recognise a piece of groundbreaking work and adjust its rules to include it from time to time. What’s more, this now means that Oscar voters have another category to seriously consider The Dark Knight in before they choosing to vote for Wall-E like they were all going to anyway.

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