Even Hollywood’s biggest night might end up being affected by the global coronavirus pandemic as reports are speculating that the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce that the Oscars ceremony will be delayed.
The Hollywood Reporter says the decision might be announced after the board of governors convenes via Zoom to decide on when the award show will be staged in 2021. According to the publication, the governors have to make a decision on whether the Oscars will be held in February like it usually is or delay it by eight weeks. This is so they can notify ABC, their broadcasting partner, of which date to hold.
This would be the first time since the 1980s that the Oscars ceremony would be delayed. As The Hollywood Reporter outlines, the Oscars have been delayed three times: in 1938, 1968, and 1981. The 1938 delay was caused by flooding in Los Angeles, while the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the cause of delay in 1968. The 1981 delay was prompted by the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.
NPR also notes that this would be the latest change implemented by the Academy, as it had previously announced that films vying for an Oscar need to meet diversity and inclusion rules. While there are currently no rules outlined, the Academy said that a task force is being created that would create these diversity and inclusion standards.
Of course, the Oscars is not the only high profile entertainment event that has had to cancel or postpone. The Cannes Film Festival had initially tried to move its 2020 staging to June before finally seeking out different ways to hold the festival in September.
One option revealed by Cannes Film Festival president Thierry Frémaux was to collaborate with other film festivals to be held in the fall, such as the Venice Film Festival. The Venice Film Festival has already announced that they would push through with the September staging of their film festival.
Even the Venice Film Festival is changing the way it is holding its festival in September, revealing that they are looking for digital ways that foreign press can take part in the festival. The organizers are also expecting smaller attendance from both foreign participants and foreign press.
It still remains to be seen whether the Oscars will be held on the prospective new date as the global coronavirus pandemic continues to rage around the world. In the June 14 situation report provided by the World Health Organization, it has been revealed that there are now 7,690,708 confirmed COVID-19 cases globally. Fatalities worldwide are now at 427,630 people.
The Centers for Disease Contro and Prevention’s update for June 14, on the other hand, pegs the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States at 2,063,812. Deaths caused by COVID-19 are now at 115,271 people.