Movie Academy’s Governors Awards Pushed From November to January Because of Strikes

The Academy’s 14th Governors Awards, at which Angela Bassett, Mel Brooks and Carol Littleton are set to obtain honorary Oscars and Michelle Satter the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, has been pushed from its beforehand introduced date of Nov. 18, 2023, to Jan. 9, 2024, within the hope that the continued actors and writers strikes shall be resolved by then.

Although the Governors Awards is a non-televised gala dinner that’s put collectively by a union crew and doubtless wouldn’t have been picketed by the putting guilds if it moved ahead in November, it doubtless would have run into different points.

The Governors Awards are held within the thick of Oscar season as a result of the Academy calculated — slightly brilliantly, it turned out — that scheduling it for then would make it a sizzling spot for giant names presently in Oscar rivalry to be seen/photographed/mingle with Academy members. Certainly, extra stars now attend the Governors Awards than the Oscars itself, not least as a result of no person has been eradicated from rivalry by the point they’re held.

However the hefty tab for attending the Governors Awards — $75,000 for a desk or $7,500 for a person seat — is sort of at all times picked up by a studio, which then fills its desk(s) by inviting the important thing contributors to its contending movies — together with, after all, actors and writers — to take a seat there alongside the studio’s high executives. That dynamic would presently be untenable.

Plus, two of this season’s 4 Governors Awards honorees are actors: Angela Bassett and Mel Brooks (additionally a author), each whom are set to obtain honorary Oscars. If the November date had been retained, it might have put them in an uncomfortable place; and in the event that they finally determined to not settle for their award in-person, it might have put the Academy in a tough place, for the reason that different two honorees, whereas extremely distinguished, will not be precisely “family names” who would independently drive ticket gross sales.

Primarily, the Academy has now pushed again the Governors Awards so far as it will possibly with out shedding the first incentive for present film stars to indicate as much as the gathering: getting publicity earlier than Oscar nomination voting, which can start on Jan. 11 and stay open via Jan. 16. (And we’ve seen what it’s like when that occurs: the twelfth Governors Awards was delayed, because of the pandemic, till the Friday earlier than Oscars Sunday in 2022, and much fewer notables have been in attendance than in different years.)

The Governors Awards is simply the newest uncommon addition to the January 2024 awards season calendar, which is shortly turning into jam-packed. Additionally pushed into the month due to the strikes: the seventy fifth Emmys, which moved from Sept. 18 to Jan. 15.

These two occasions be a part of the thirty fifth Palm Springs Worldwide Movie Pageant (Jan. 4), the BAFTA Tea Occasion (Jan. 6), the 81st Golden Globe Awards (Jan. 7), the twenty fourth AFI Awards luncheon (Jan. 12) and the twenty ninth Critics Alternative Awards (Jan. 14). Plus, the forty seventh Sundance Movie Pageant will happen from Jan. 18 via Jan. 28, and the nominations for the 96th Academy Awards shall be introduced on Jan. 23.