The 2021 Academy Awards Ceremony Pushed Back Two Months
The next Academy Awards ceremony is certainly going to be an interesting one with how things in the movie business have played out this year so far due to the coronavirus. I thought that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would just cancel it, but instead, they are just pushing back the award ceremony two months.
So, instead of the Oscars taking place on February 28th, they will now take place on April 25th, 2021. Personally, I don’t even care about the Oscars anymore. I used to! There was a time when watching the Oscars was fun. Now the whole thing has become way too political for it to be any fun.
Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson said in a statement:
“For over a century, movies have played an important role in comforting, inspiring, and entertaining us during the darkest of times. They certainly have this year. Our hope, in extending the eligibility period and our Awards date, is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalized for something beyond anyone’s control. This coming Oscars and the opening of our new museum will mark an historic moment, gathering movie fans around the world to unite through cinema.”
The extended release date eligibility rules say that a feature film must now have a qualifying release date between Jan. 1, 2020, and Feb. 28, 2021. The submission deadline for specialty categories (animated feature film, documentary feature, documentary short subject, international feature film, animated short film and live action short film) is Dec. 1, 2020. The submission deadline for general entry categories, including best picture, original score and original song, is now Jan. 15, 2021.
It was also recently announced that the Academy was forming a task force with the Producers Guild of America “to develop and implement new representation and inclusion standards for Oscars eligibility by July 31, 2020.” There will also be a fixed 10 film cap for Best Picture nominees.
Variety points out three other times tat the Oscars have been postponed. “They were first delayed in 1938 after massive flooding in Los Angeles. In 1968, they were put on hold after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and again in 1981 following an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.”