IT’S unlikely that anyone would base a hotel on “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Frost/Nixon” or any of the other films nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards this year. Each invokes poverty, or personal or political strife. But hoteliers have sometimes turned to movies for design ideas. Even films as dark as “A Clockwork Orange,” “The Shining,” and Jean Cocteau’s 1946 “La Belle et la Bête” have served as inspiration for boutique hotels. The hotel industry, which was once largely about standardization, has been moving toward specialization, which creates the need for distinctive designs, said John Arabia, a hotel analyst and principal of Green Street Advisors.

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