The postponement was no doubt due to the closure of cinemas and the cessation of filming following the coronavirus epidemic. The Academy of Oscars and ABC, the channel that broadcasts the gala, confirmed Monday evening that the 93rd edition of the most glamorous ceremony of the seventh art will take place on April 25, and not on February 28, 2021 as planned. As a corollary, the Academy has extended the release period for Oscar-eligible films from December 31, 2020 to February 28, 2021.
Two more months to allow "filmmakers the flexibility to finish and release their films without being penalized . " In other words, this would offer the possibility of relaunching the shootings, finalizing the editing, the special effects, etc. Many feature films have been frozen at the post-production level. According to Variety , this delay could allow Ridley Scott to complete his medieval drama The Last Duel with Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Jodie Comer. The biopic that Baz Luhrman is preparing on Elvis Presley for which Tom Hanks was in Australia when he fell ill with Covid-19, could also benefit.
Potential favorites expected in December 2020, such as the remake of West Side Story by Steven Spielberg, could also choose to postpone their release date to be revealed when the votes for the nominations are in full swing, in early 2021. Nominations which will be made public on March 15, 2021.
Unheard of since the television broadcast of the Oscars
Oscars in the spring? This is nothing new. Until the early 2000s, the ceremony fluctuated between March and April. The gala has already been postponed in the past, as in 1938 after floods in Los Angeles, after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 and the assassination attempt committed against President Reagan in 1981. But the ceremony never had been delayed more than a week. But never has a date as late as April 25 been chosen in the nearly 70 years that the ceremony has been televised.
This upsets the center of gravity of the award season and by extension the event calendar of the cinema world, and this while the Academy of Oscars was nevertheless seeking to shorten the campaign period to rekindle the suspense and the interest of the weary public faced with an endless succession of awards.
Traditionally, the festivities start in January with the Golden Globes and then continue with the ceremonies organized by the guilds of actors, directors, producers. All these talents multiply in the months preceding press and professional events, attend screenings, participate in debates. Each intermediate ceremony is a decisive opportunity to gain the upper hand for the winner who can refine his arguments in his thank you speech.
A few weeks of breathing before Cannes
Unsurprisingly, the Oscar initiative was soon followed. Within an hour, the Bafta, the British equivalent of our Caesars, announced that they too were moving to April 11. History to keep their aura of "last oracle" before the Oscars. The Golden Globes, prizes awarded by a hundred foreign journalists based in California, will also adapt their calendar. The guilds will follow in order not to lose their relevance.
This means that the red carpet and premiere hurricane that begins in September with the Venice Film Festival and the Telluride festival and is in full swing between November and January should rather be unleashed from January to April. In turn, the fall festivals (Toronto, Venice), which are the traditional launching pads for Oscar favorites, will no longer be strategic stops if they continue on the scheduled dates. The Mostra also planned an edition with a reduced airfoil where the Americans, usually so present, largely declined the invitation.
This spring of cinephile madness questions. Will studios and Hollywood stars have the desire and the energy a few weeks after the 93rd Oscars to go to the Cannes Film Festival to present and promote films that would bid for the distant Oscars 2022? Already in normal times, the Croisette is an expensive investment and less attractive than in the past for the Americans, even if the success of Parasite and Once Upon A Time ... in Hollywood have restored the coat of arms of the event.
This calendar puts the Berlinale in a good position. Usually scheduled between mid-February and the beginning of March, the German festival finds itself in fact in the Oscar race.
What about our tricolor Caesars? Will they follow the example of their American and English cousins to fill up on eligible films and allow themselves the possibility of organizing a ceremony if the rules of social distancing allow it? Unfortunately, this is not the only problem that this institution has to solve. In the meantime, the soap opera is just beginning.