The Oscars 2025 nominations has been delayed due to the Los Angeles wildfire. But will the ceremony also be stalled due to the crisis? Several reports claim so
Oscars 2025
When the Palisades Fire broke out in Los Angeles last Tuesday, Hollywood's awards season was in full swing. The Golden Globes had transpired less than 48 hours earlier and a series of splashy awards banquets followed in the days after. But the enormity of the destruction in Southern California has quickly snuffed out all festiveness in the movie industry's high season of celebration. At one point, the flames even encroached on the hillside above the Dolby Theatre, the home of the Academy Awards.
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The fires have struck at the very heart of a movie industry still trying to stabilize itself after years of pandemic, labour turmoil and technological upheaval. Not for the first time this decade, the Oscars are facing the question of: Should the show go on? And if it does, what do they mean now?
"With ALL due respect during Hollywood's season of celebration, I hope any of the networks televising the upcoming awards will seriously consider NOT televising them and donating the revenue they would have gathered to victims of the fires and the firefighters," 'Hacks' star Jean Smart, a recent Globe winner, wrote on Instagram.
The Oscars remain as scheduled, but it's certain that they will be transformed due to the wildfires, and that most of the red-carpet pomp that typically stretches between now and then will be curtailed if not altogether cancelled. With so many left without a home by the fires, there's scant appetite for the usual self-congratulatory parades of the season.
Focus has turned, instead, to what the Oscars might symbolize for a traumatised Los Angeles. The Oscars have never meant less, but, at the same time, they might be more important than ever as a beacon of perseverance for the reeling movie capital.
What the Academy said about reports of cancellation
With reports of a delay or cancellation of the award ceremony doing the rounds, the Hollywood Reporter reached out to the Academy who outright refuted all such claims. The authorities told the publication that there is no such plan to delay the award ceremony which is scheduled to take place on March 2 in Dolby theatre in Los Angeles.
Academy delays nomination date
The film academy on Monday for the second time delayed its nominations announcement. Nominations will now be announced virtually on February 23. The academy also cancelled its annual nominees luncheon and said it's planning to honour frontline workers and to support relief efforts.
"We will get through this together and bring a sense of healing to our global film community," vowed Bill Kramer, academy chief executive, and Janet Yang, academy president.
A not dissimilar process happened during the 2021 Oscars, which were postponed to late April because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Oscars have been moved a few times throughout history, including in 1938, when the show was delayed a week due to historic flooding in Los Angeles.
For the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the wildfires have been acutely personal. Four of the academy's 55-person board of governors lost their homes, according to The Hollywood Reporter, including producer Lynette Howell Taylor, visual effects governor Brooke Breton, sound branch governor Mark P. Stoeckinger and animation branch governor Jinko Gotoh. The Pacific Palisades, which was largely destroyed by the fires, was home to many stars and executives.
For potential nominees, this would normally be when they'd be at their most active, campaigning in Q&As and other events tied to the all-important nominations voting period. All of that has ground to a halt.
(with inputs from AP)
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