21/10/2020
Oscars 2021 will be unlike any edition in The Academy's 93-year old history, thanks to the coronavirus
Besides the possibility of an Emmys-like virtual award ceremony, Oscars 2021 could be a game-changer in terms of nominations, where streaming giants, smaller production houses, and Black contenders may find more space.
It is a big achievement to win an Oscar. But in 2021, it may be an even bigger achievement just to stage them.
We are now nearing the end of a disastrous movie year in which the release calendar has melted before our eyes and theaters have been left in dire straits because of a still-raging pandemic. This is not exactly “Hooray for Hollywood” material, but Oscar season has begun anyway, albeit with new rules that allow for streaming-service debuts and a ceremony that has been pushed two months past its usual date, to 25 April.
Who will be nominated, elected or vaccinated by then? It would be a tall order to forecast all three of those fraught outcomes, so let us just stick with the Oscars. Here are four ways I expect Hollywood’s hallowed gauntlet to play out during the most unusual period of our lives:
Big-budget movies will be scarce
In the face of dwindling broadcast ratings, ABC has prodded the academy for category tweaks that will allow more blockbusters to be featured. Still, with the box office curtailed since March, bona fide hits will be few and far between.
Major potential contenders like West Side Story and Dune have already been shuttled to 2021, and even some of the starriest specialty titles, like Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, have opted to sit out the season entirely instead of pivoting to a digital debut. Universal is so far holding fast to a Christmas Day theatrical release for its Tom Hanks western, News of the World, from Captain Phillips director Paul Greengrass, but another big release earmarked for that holiday, Wonder Woman 1984, is widely expected to fly to 2021.
All that big-studio scarcity could create an opening for Pixar’s Soul, which was plucked from the theatrical calendar and recommissioned for a debut on Disney+ in December. With a diminished field of would-be blockbusters to choose from, Soul may sneak in and become the first animated film nominated for best picture since Toy Story 3 in 2011.
Major categories could be more diverse than ever
The academy recently introduced new diversity guidelines meant to encourage more equitable representation behind and in front of the camera. Although the guidelines are not set to take effect until 2024, the nominees for this year could already make good on those goals.
The best-director category, regularly criticised for its lack of female nominees, has a wealth of strong options this year. Contenders like Chloé Zhao, who directed the Frances McDormand road drama Nomadland (due in December), and Regina King, a recent supporting-actress winner who stepped behind the camera to adapt the play One Night in Miami (also December), could even become the first women of colour to ever be nominated for the best-director Oscar.
