New Delhi
With music and film festivals around the world being cancelled or postponed due to coronavirus, The Academy is now contemplating shifting the awards next year to a later date.
The 93rd Academy Awards are scheduled to take place 9 months from now, on February 28 but the organisers feel that itâs still too early.
The Academy now wants to push the awards further by some months. Quoted in The Sun, a source said, âWhat theyâre proposing is pushing back the ceremony, which was going to take place on February 28, to either late May or early June. Doing this means films forced to postpone their release dates can put them out later this year or in early 2021 knowing they will still be eligible for the Oscars.â
âFilm studios have been informed of the plans and are now drawing up their release dates accordingly. But with everything still so up in the air, itâs all rather tentative at the moment,â added the source.
Production companies that have been apprised reportedly, are now thinking of pushing the release dates. Some have already pushed the dates with upto a year with âNo Time To Dieâ, âA Quiet Place 2â, âTop Gun: Maverickâ, âMulanâ, âF9â and âBlack Widowâ among the early cinematic casualties.
On the other hand, if Oscars continues to go ahead with the February date, many studios will hold back their offerings so as to be eligible for 2022 Oscars.
Meanwhile, The Academy has also made some changes in selection as films that stream on TT platforms will also be eligible to compete in main categories. According to previous rules, a film could be eligible for a nomination if it was âshown in a commercial motion picture theatre in Los Angeles County for a theatrical qualifying run of at least seven consecutive days, during which period screenings must occur at least three times dailyâ.
This year, films that were forced to cancel their theatrical releases due to the pandemic can still be eligible for nominations for best picture, if they were made available on a streaming service like Netflix or a VOD service.