EGN NEWS DESK
January is usually a celebratory time in Hollywood, with A-listers attending awards ceremonies just like the Golden Globes whereas campaigning for Oscar nominations. But as fires proceed to ravage Los Angeles, one name to curtail the celebrating got here from Jean Smart, the “Hacks” star who gained a Globe for finest actress in a tv comedy on Sunday night time.
“With ALL due respect throughout Hollywood’s season of celebration,” Smart wrote on Instagram, “I hope any of the networks televising the upcoming awards will severely take into account NOT televising them and donating the income they’d have gathered to victims of the fires and the firefighters.”
Already, the awards-season calendar has been barely reshuffled as a response to the fires: The Critics Choice Awards, set to be televised this Sunday, had been pushed again two weeks, whereas the announcement of the Oscar nominations was pushed again from Jan. 17 to Jan. 19. Nominations set to be unveiled this week by the producers, writers and cinematographers guilds had been additionally delayed a number of days. (The Screen Actors Guild went forward with its nominations on Wednesday however opted to not televise them as deliberate. The Directors Guild nominations had been introduced through information launch as normal.)
But may the persevering with catastrophe have an effect on the Oscars telecast, which is ready for March 2?
Though the Academy Awards have by no means been outright canceled, present occasions have typically pressured a postponement. The first occasion got here in 1938, when the ceremony was moved again per week due to immense flooding in Los Angeles. In 1968, the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led to a two-day present delay, whereas the 1981 capturing of President Ronald Reagan pushed the present again sooner or later. The most important postponement affected the 2021 Oscars ceremony, which was moved from its deliberate February date to April due to the Covid pandemic.
In addition to the Oscars and Critics Choice Awards, forthcoming televised ceremonies embody the Independent Spirit Awards (Feb. 22) and SAG Awards (Feb. 23). Still, any calls to cancel them could also be contested: The income these reveals generate from advert income can be misplaced, and the cancellation would have an effect on crew members who’ve already been hit exhausting by a current downturn in productions based mostly in Los Angeles. Ancillary employees who serve the reveals, like wait employees and florists, may be affected, and among the smaller motion pictures are relying on the awards-show highlight to generate field workplace curiosity.
In any case, these conversations could also be untimely: The fires are nonetheless ongoing and nobody is definite what state Los Angeles will probably be in after they finish. Sources throughout the academy are mentioned to be sizing up the state of affairs on a day-by-day foundation.
