If red-carpet, A-list awards shows are your thing, this is going to be a bad year.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has decided to delay next year’s Oscars ceremony from Feb. 28 to April 25 due to COVID-19 — not necessarily because of health-related concerns, but because so many of this year’s film releases had to be postponed.
Films typically make their debut in theaters before they’re released online. But theaters, like so many other businesses, were forced to shut their doors as states worked to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. So several producers decided to postpone their releases until the pandemic had subsided. Big films such as Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, Marvel’s Black Widow, and Warner Bros.’s new Batman were all pushed back till the end of this year, or even late into 2021.
To make up for this postponement, the academy is delaying its window of eligibility and allowing producers to submit their films for consideration beyond its usual Dec. 31 deadline and up until Feb. 14, 2021. The board is also allowing producers, for the first time ever, to skip theatrical releases and release films directly online.
This is only the fourth time in Oscars history that the ceremony has been delayed, and it’s likely that other red-carpet awards, such as the Golden Globes or the Screen Actors Guild Awards, will follow suit. Which just goes to show that we’ll be living with the costs of the COVID-19 shutdown for a long while yet — even after the immediate threat of widespread infection has disappeared.
This will be especially true of the economy, which has shown hopeful signs of a substantial rebound. But even if this somewhat V-shaped recovery continues, there’s no replacing the many small businesses that went under during the shutdown, and the businesses that did survive will be working to make back what they lost for at least the next year.
The same goes for the film industry. The loss of ticket sales has put already struggling movie theaters in a tough position financially, and even big production companies are worried about the long-term costs. So the decision to delay the Oscars is simply an attempt to provide flexibility amid these uncontrollable circumstances, said academy president David Rubin.
Things will go back to normal eventually, but who’s to say when?
