Celeb Best Blog

Hollywood holds its biggest night of the year on Sunday, as the annual Oscars coronation gets underway with two very different front-running films vying for top honours. British royal drama The King's Speech was seen as a major contender for Best Picture, buoyed by glowing reviews and a bevy of other awards seen as accurate barometers of Oscars glory. The movie, nominated for 12 Academy Awards - including best actor for Colin Firth - has been tipped by some critics as a shoo-in for best picture. It faces stiff competition, however, from the crowd-pleasing Facebook flick The Social Network, deemed one of the year's must-see films, which is nominated for eight awards.

The 2011 Oscars in numbers

Here is a selection of key numbers about the 83rd Academy Awards show Sunday evening.

- 5,755: number of Oscars voting members.

- 700: number of red carpet viewing seats.

- 350: number of TV crew for Oscars telecast.

- More than 200: number of countries in which the Oscars will be seen.

- Several hundred million: estimated global viewership of this year's show.

- 24: number of competitive award categories for the 2011 Oscars.

- 66: number of countries submitting foreign language films.

- 50: number of Oscar statuettes created for 83rd Academy Awards.

- 2,768: number of Oscar statuettes presented since the first show in 1929.

- 13.5 inches (34 cm): height of Oscar statuette.

- 8.5 pounds (3.85 kilos): weight of Oscar statuette.

- 4 hours, 23 minutes: longest Oscars show, in 2002.

- 1 hour, 40 minutes: shortest Oscars show, in 1959.

- 10: number of Oscar shows hosted at the Kodak Theatre.

- 3,300: number of seats at the Kodak Theater for the Oscars show.

- 152.4 metres: length of red carpet.

- 10 metres: width of red carpet - 19: most number of times the same person has hosted the Oscars (Bob Hope)

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