Maybe it’s because this year has been one of the worst in memory for decent movies (so far), but we’re actually kind of missing awards season, if only because you’re guaranteed films that are at least aiming for quality, rather than the lowest common denominator. But we didn’t feel that way in February, when the season wrapped up with the Academy Awards, and we felt fatigued with every twist and turn of the six-month campaign (and we can only imagine how excellent sites like Awards Daily and In Contention, which focus on the awards race, must have felt).
But it’s still with mixed feelings that we report that, at last night’s Board of Governors meeting for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the possibility was raised of moving Oscar night up a month, to sometime in January. This would move them before many of the other ceremonies seen as forerunners to the big show, and risk making them irrelevant.
Apparently, studio executives are keen on the idea, one telling Nikki Finke that “The awards season is too long currently. This will shorten and reduce the amount of campaigning. Also it will make the Oscars the definitive awards show again.” This makes sense, but as that article points out, condensing the awards season would also have a major drawback.
The season is already over-crowded anyway, particularly now that doubling the field has allowed for twice the previous number of Best Picture nominees. By holding the awards in January, ballots would likely have to be sent out in December, and the actual movies much earlier, meaning that movies with already tight turnarounds, like Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants” or the Coen Bros’ “True Grit” could have weeks lopped off their post-production schedules.
We can certainly see this becoming an idea adopted in future years, but we think it’s extremely unlikely for 2011; a source told Finke “There’s a zero percent chance that the Executive team can figure out how to logistically coordinate voting that soon.” Right now, it seems like it’s just an idea being floated, not a formal plan.
In related news, Deadline also reported that “American Beauty” and “Milk” producer Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer, who helmed the live broadcasts for the Obama Inaugural Celebration and several Olympic ceremonies, will produce next year’s Academy Awards show. The pair are already looking for hosts, so we’d expect to see an announcement soon.