Cold Mountain's Jude Law has been nominated for a best actor Oscar

The Miramax Films co-chairman said they "plain ran out of people who had seen the movie" while gathering support from Academy Award voters.

Weinstein's studio is left without a best picture nomination for the first time in 12 years.

But it had the most nominations overall - 15 - for the third year in a row.

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The fact that the Oscars will be held in February this year, rather than the traditional March, has changed "the whole positioning of movies", Weinstein said.

Cold Mountain was released at Christmas in the US. Apart from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, every other best picture nominee was released before December, Weinstein said.

"With the early [Oscar voting] this year, we fell short.

"There's a lot to do for Academy members and I don't know how many members we got to."

As a result he said Miramax would bring forward the release of Neverland starring Johnny Depp to October and Martin Scorsese's The Aviator to November in a bid for 2005 Oscar nominations.

Nevertheless Cold Mountain did win seven Oscar nominations, including best actor for Jude Law and best supporting actress for Renee Zellwegger.