Gallup Poll: American Public Would Vote 'The Green Mile' as Best Picture in Academy Awards
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's the Academy members that vote on Oscar, but of course the public has their own opinion about who should be walking home with Oscar gold on Sunday night. Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup organization, has some numbers on what the public thinks -- Frank.</s>FRANK NEWPORT, GALLUP POLL EDITOR IN CHIEF: Yes, Daryn. In fact Gallup's been asking questions about the movies all the way back to the 1930s, believe it or not. Gallup did a lot of market research for movie companies at that point, and we've kind of updated those questions. One of them, Daryn, was marquee value. Is there somebody that people tell us they would make a special trip to go out and see at the movies? We've been asking that since like 1941. We re-ask it now, and this will give you a clue, Daryn, as to who you should be having lunch with out there, and it's Julia Roberts. If you could book a lunch with her in answer to that question, she was the number one person people said would draw them to the movies this year. About half the people said there's somebody like that. Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington kind of fill out that list. Now, in terms of the big question, of course, the envelope question, if we ask the people who they would vote for the best picture, who should win on Sunday night, it's "The Green Mile," it's not "American Beauty," which is the critics' choice, everybody saying it's the probably front-runner. "The Green Mile," Tom Hanks, movie number one, "The Sixth Sense," then "American Beauty," and almost -- very few people choose "Cider House Rules" or "The Insider." Now, what's interesting about it is while 29 percent choose "The Green Mile," we said, have you seen the movie? And only 21 percent have actually seen it. So we've got Americans saying it should win who haven't even seen the movie. One reason may be that that was based on a Stephen King -- very best-selling author's novel that was put out in installments, and it may be that a lot of people know the novel and that's why they're voting for it. Twenty-one percent have seen it, but you see about 44 percent said they want to rush out and see it in the future. It'll do big box office, perhaps, although critics say it's not likely to win. What about those songs? We did ask people, you know, "Blame Canada," the "South Park" song is very controversial, whether it should show up. We just asked people, should those songs be in the Academy Awards broadcast at all on Sunday or should they get rid of those seemingly sometimes interminable singing: 68 percent of Americans said, yes, keep them in. They want to see the songs on Sunday night. By the say, we did say, out of five previous hosts, including Bob Hope, David Letterman, Johnny Carson and Denzel Washington -- excuse me --not Denzel but in terms of Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg, which one do you prefer as the host, Daryn, and Billy Crystal Wins, although Bob Hope, among those 65 and older, would be the favorite host. That's where the public stands. We'll see what happens on Sunday night. Daryn back to you in La-La Land.</s>KAGAN: Frank Newport, thank you very much. And I bet if you took a poll on what would be the best pre-show to watch, 100 percent of the viewers would say CNN. The "SHOWBIZ" folks are putting together a great pre-show for you. It is called "Fame, Film and Fashion 2000" You can see it here beginning 7:00 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, 4:00 p.m. Pacific. Search CNN.com CNNSI.com CNNmoney.com The Web