Oscars delayed until April 2021

The ripple effects of the coronavirus pandemic are extending way into the future. If you don’t believe us, check out our list of revised movie release dates – movies are even being shifted into 2022 as a result of the disease’s wide-ranging impacts.

And it turns out that not even the Oscars are immune to the damaging spread of Covid-19. It’s been announced by Deadline that the 2021 Academy Awards are being bumped from their traditional February release date into April, April 25th to be exact, to accommodate the shifting release schedule.

Never before during the televised era have the Academy Awards moved so late into the year – late being a relative term. The Oscars are usually designed to capitalise on the backwash from the awards-friendly movies that are released between September and December in the USA. Here in the UK, we often pick up those titles later in January and February.

Deadline indicates that the pre-TV era of the Oscars did showcase an event in May. Also, The Sound of Music walked away with Best Picture during the ceremony broadcast on 18th April 1966. Regardless, this will have an interesting domino effect on the traditional release pattern.

With early 2020 releases like No Time To Die and Black Widow shunted into late 2020, this will have moved the onslaught of awards-courting titles into the January-March 2021 period. It’s also being reported that the Oscars eligibility window is being extended by two months to accommodate the changes. Movies released between 1st January 2021 and 28th February 2021 are now eligible for Academy attention, which could blow the whole race wide open.

What will this mean for the 93rd Academy Awards? Let us know @Cineworld.