More changes are coming to next year's Academy Awards.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Monday that the annual ceremony, which had originally been scheduled for Feb. 27, 2021, will be pushed back to Sunday, April 25 in 2021. The event is still expected to take place at the Dolby Theater and be broadcast live.
In addition, the deadline for eligibility — that is, the date by which a film must be released in order to qualify for the next year's Oscars — has been extended from Dec. 31 through Feb. 28.
The Academy confirmed the news, along with some other date changes, via Twitter.
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According to The Hollywood Reporter, this marks only the second time that the eligibility window has been expanded beyond 12 months, and it is not expected to be a permanent shift. The organization will revert back to the more traditional Jan. 1 through Dec. 31 window in the future.
The news comes after the organization announced in April that the rules would be relaxed to allow digital releases to qualify, provided that they were originally slated for cinemas. The changes are intended to accommodate theatrical releases that were pushed back or canceled due to the coronavirus.
Few major films have opened in theaters over the past few months, with theaters shutting down entirely in some states. Next month's Mulan and Tenet are expected to signal the return of big movies to cinemas, but even those dates may be in flux; just last week, Warner Bros. delayed Tenet's release from July 17 to July 31.
