Emmanuel Adigwe
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, organizers of the 2021 Oscars ceremony have postponed the event.
It will be recalled that the event was initially fixed for February 28 was shifted to April 2021 and but will now take now take place on April 25, 2021.
The organisers, who stated this in a statement issued to the press and signed by President David Rubin and Academy Chief Executive, Dawn Hudson, also shifted the deadline by which movies must be released in order to be qualified for an Oscar nomination. The new dates are: December 31, 2020 to February 28, 2021.
The statement read: “Extending the eligibility period and our Awards date, is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalised for something beyond anyone’s control.
“The production shutdown meant that many filmmakers feared their movies would not be finished by the usual year-end Oscar eligibility deadline.
“Dozens of other movie releases have been moved to 2021.
“It was only the fourth time in the 93-year history of the Academy Awards that the date has been changed; in 1938, due to floods in Los Angeles, in 1968 because of the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and in 1981 after the attempted assassination of then-President Ronald Reagan.”