The 2021 Oscars have been pushed back as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which has largely shut down movie theaters for several months…
The 2021 Oscars will still happen but not until a later date.
On Monday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to postpone the 2021 Academy Awards from February to April 25. The postponement will also result in a new date for eligibility for films vying for an Oscar.
Typically, the Oscars go by a standard calendar year with films released between January 1 and December 31. Now due to the delays with the coronavirus pandemic shutting down theaters and many films being pushed back, the new eligibility window will run from Jan. 1, 2020 through February 28, 2021.
The move to delay the Oscars isn’t completely unexpected, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has rarely pushed back the awards show in the past.
This year is an unprecedented situation, however, with the film release schedule almost non-existent for the past few months after the COVID-19 outbreak forced most studios to abandon plans for upcoming movies due to theaters across the world being shut down. Even with movie theaters in many cities and states across the U.S. beginning to open again, most major studios have still delayed films from being released until the latter part of 2020.
It’s impossible to say how this will ultimately affect the Oscars but now films will have a much larger window to be released and still considered for the awards in 2021.
The show will air on ABC next year.
