Oscars 2022 strikes to late March, retains 2021 pandemic eligibility guidelines

Planning is already underway for the 94th Oscars, which will likely be held on March 27, 2022, the movie academy and ABC stated on Thursday.
After a yr of disruption, innovation and catastrophically low scores, the Academy Awards are getting again to enterprise as normal. The present will return to the Dolby Theatre for its ABC broadcast and the eligibility window will as soon as once more shut on the finish of the calendar yr.
This previous yr, the academy prolonged the eligibility window into February and cancelled non-televised occasions just like the Governors Awards and the Nominees Luncheon due to the pandemic. All these trimmings are actually again on the schedule, with the Governors Awards set for January 15 and the luncheon to be held on March 7. Nominations will likely be introduced on February 8.
The academy stated, nevertheless, that dates stay topic to alter. The organisation can be acknowledging that the film enterprise remains to be being impacted by the pandemic and are extending the streaming eligibility caveat they adopted final yr into the 2021 awards season. That implies that movies don’t essentially must have a theatrical run to qualify and may debut on streaming or video on demand providers.
The finish of March broadcast date is far later than normal for Hollywood’s greatest awards present. Originally the 94th version was set to air on February 27, however that month can be crowded with main stay occasions, together with the 2022 Olympics and the Super Bowl.
The viewers for the 93rd Oscars, which was held at Los Angeles’ Union Station in late April, was lower than half of its earlier low, with solely 9.85 million viewers tuning in to observe Nomadland win greatest image. It was par for the course for a pandemic awards present: Both the Golden Globes (6.9 million viewers) and Grammy Awards (9.2 million) had file low audiences as properly.
And subsequent yr will likely be totally different with out the Golden Globes, which usually airs in early January, stealing among the Oscars thunder. NBC stated earlier this yr that it will not air the Golden Globes in 2022 amid controversies and requires reform throughout the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organisation that places it on.