In the end, they decide based on whatever they decide.   But their general rule says:

"For a work to be eligible for inclusion in the database it must be of general public interest and should be available to the public or have been available in the past. "

"General public interest" can mean that the project involves a name or company that verifiably exists and has a track record.  So yes, there's a certain level of favoritism, only because if Paramount says they're shooting a movie, IMDB has good reason to believe it, even before it comes out.    Or if there are any reputable third-party sources that can show why the project-to-be is of interest - a magazine article or something at the very least. 

Without something like the above, there's no reason for IMDB to believe the project exists at all until it's assembled and viewable by an audience.    Once you can prove THAT happened, then a listing will be much more likely to be approved.

But you can see why IMDB works this way - the number of vapor-ware project submissions they receive, that then never really amount to anything, must be staggering.

The IMDB Eligibility FAQ

An interesting take on this topic, from the other side of the fence - excerpts from an interview with Ron Meyer, the head of Universal. 

In which he talks about canceling blockbusters, and also gives a list of which of their recent movies were "shitty". 

So's Ark, which had a page for a short while until it was deemed not relevant enough to have a page.

If Ark doesn't pass the relevancy test, I dunno if DIF would, but there's no harm in trying...

In 1972 Universal gave several young filmmakers that million dollar deal - Doug Trumbull was one, another was George Lucas, who used his million to make American Graffiti.

Silent Running didn't make many waves, but Graffiti was a huge hit, got nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director... which gave that Lucas kid the clout to make his wacky scifi fantasy about robots and wizards. 

Which, ironically enough, helped propel the studios toward the blockbuster mentality they still have today.  And so the circle is complete.

The what now?

That is true.

But anyway, you're right, it's a kickass piece of music.  Which is why I've known the name of it since seeing Ghost World, because I had to find out the answer to "What the heck is that crazy song she's listening to?"

It might be a little odd to see Ghost World now, knowing that one kid went on to do a topless scene in American Beauty, and the other went on to shoot arty nude pics of herself with an iPhone.

That's already happened, but so far it's pushing the studios even further toward the blockbuster ideology, not away from it.  You can make a feature for 30k now, and it might even be worth watching, but it won't be Pirates of the Caribbean or Iron Man.  Spectacle is one of the few things a big-budget movie can still deliver, that a youtube video can't.

Already, the occasional 2-buck feature that's actually good enough to be released theatrically often DOES get released theatrically.  Monsters and Paranormal Activity have their place - but they don't come close to scratching the itch that an Independence Day or Avatar does.   As much as I like and admire them, if the only movies being made were Monsters-scale, pretty soon even I'd be wanting to see a Transformers movie.

What I THINK you're referring to, is my questioning whether or not those alternate versions of "All work and no play..." that were talked about were actually typed and shot for the movie.   

I know the movie would have been dubbed in German (I am still amazed that they dub EVERYTHING there, even the most obscure old tv shows) and other languages.  But it's excessive enough that somebody had to type all those pages in English - I just found it hard to believe that that many pages were typed in several other major languages and also shot, and then inserted into multiple alternate versions of the movie.  Seems more likely the pages would just have been subtitled in other languages, whether or not the rest of the movie was subtitled or dubbed.   

Looking around online just now, there seems to be disagreement as to whether alternate versions were shot or not.  I couldn't find any screengrabs of shots of other versions, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.   It still seems unlikely to me, but if there's any actual proof, I'll certainly accept it.

And there's proof that Zap is a genius.

I dunno, maybe things are different now that Libyans are the good guys again.

I'm thinking it would work better as a musical reboot.  It's all fun and games at Rick's Cafe Anachronism, until one fateful day, etc. etc...

Featuring such show-stopping numbers as:

Goodness Gracious, It's the Cretaceous!
Portal To Yesterday (When She Was Mine)
Do The Pterodactyl!
Paradox, Shmaradox
It's Too Soon For Nazis
Maybe Not Today, Maybe Not Tomorrow: The Time Traveler's Lament
Comet's a'Comin'!
As Time Goes By (Kanye West Remix)