The 2021 edition of the Academy Awards which was earlier scheduled to hold on February 28, 2021, has been moved to April 25, 2021, due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
Movie theatres over the world had been shut down in mid-March and movie production halted due to the same reason.
The Academy has also extended the deadline for the submission of movies for the Oscars, as they are popularly called, from February 28, 2021, from December 31, 2020.
“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,” Academy President David Rubin and Academy Chief Executive Dawn Hudson said in a statement.
This only the fourth time in its 93-year history. the ceremony has been postponed.
It was postponed in in 1938 due to floods in Los Angeles, in 1968 after the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and in 1981 after the attempted assassination of then-President Ronald Reagan.
