Oscars Ceremony Pushed Back To April 2021
It’s official. The board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has moved the Oscars ceremony back by two months due to the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic.
Variety reports that the board of governors announced the decision after convening via Zoom. In a statement released by the organization, they said they came to the decision to provide filmmakers with the opportunity to finish their films without feeling burdened by something out of their control like the global coronavirus pandemic.
Aside from postponing the award show itself, the announcement also included the moving of the Governors Awards gala to an unspecified date. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opening was also moved to April from December so as to match with the holding of the awards show.
Whether the 2021 Oscars ceremony will be a live event or a virtual one has not been decided on yet. According to Karey Burke, president of the Oscars broadcasting partner, ABC Entertainment, what they are aiming for is a “safe and celebratory” event.
This delay marks the fourth time this has happened in Oscars history. The first time the award ceremony was delayed was in 1938 due to flooding in Los Angeles. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 caused another delay. The attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 was the reason for the third delay.
The BBC also notes that the change in date also comes with a number of rule changes from the Academy. The organizers had earlier announced a “temporary exemption” by including films that had debuted either on a streaming service or video on demand as eligible for nomination.
The Academy had also earlier announced that diversity and inclusion rules would be introduced that films who want to be nominated need to meet. These inclusion standards would be formulated by a task force that the Academy is creating.
Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, delays and cancelations have now become the new normal for entertainment events like the Oscars. Even before the Oscars had to push back its staging, the Cannes Film Festival already had to forego holding its own festival after it had already rescheduled it to June. The festival had to seek out different ways to hold the festival in September.
The Venice Film Festival, while pushing through with its September dates, have had to look for digital alternatives so that foreign press can easily cover and take part in the festival.
With the global coronavirus pandemic continuing to wreak havoc around the world, it does not look like things will go back to normal just yet. According to the June 15 situation report from the World Health Organization, there are now 7,823,289 confirmed COVID-19 cases globally. Around the world, 431,541 people have died from the disease.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s update for June 15, the United States now has 2,085,769 confirmed COVID-19 cases. Deaths caused by COVID-19 are now at 115,644 people.