Is this an 'Asterisk Oscars' or a sign of things to come? - WKMG News 6 & ClickOrlando

In 93 years of existence, the Oscars have been postponed by shootings — the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the attempted killing of Ronald Reagan — and by a flood, when 1938 rainstorms overwhelmed the Los Angeles River. Sunday’s ceremony will be the first Academy Awards delayed by a pandemic.

After a year that erased movie titles from marquees and sent seismic shockwaves through Hollywood, the show is going on — two months later than usual, in a crowdless ceremony at Los Angeles’ Union Station and with a batch of nominees that have barely played in movie theaters. The biggest box office of the best-picture nominees belongs to “Promising Young Woman” — a pandemic blockbuster with $6.3 million in U.S. ticket sales.

That this is all very strange goes without saying. Given such an unusual year, this year’s awards have been called the “Asterisk Oscars.” But there is reason to believe, and even to hope, that some of this year’s changes are here to stay.

The broadcast, beginning 8 p.m. EDT Sunday on ABC after a red-carpet pre-show, will be the most transformed in decades. The show’s producers, led by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, are pledging an entire makeover, one perhaps long overdue for an institution resistant to innovation. They plan to treat the awards more like a movie, including shooting it in 24 frames-per-second, rather than the typical 30. Zooms are strictly forbidden. Instead, tested and quarantined maskless nominees will gather at the downtown train station, while satellite feeds connect others from around the world.

On the heels of a humbling year, the Oscars — usually a frothy night of self-congratulation — this year may feel more like a therapeutic rally for an industry in the midst of convulsive change.

Just the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards saw one of Los Angeles’ most iconic movie theaters, the Cinerama Dome, along with ArcLight Cinemas, go out of business. When the Walt Disney Co. announced that it would delay “Black Widow” from May to July and open it both theatrically and on Disney+, cinemas shuddered. Adding to the sense of wholesale change was the news that Searchlight Pictures’ Nancy Utley and Steve Gilula — who have steered so many Oscar winners, including this year’s best-picture favorite, Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” — were stepping down.

“Even as the pandemic is winding down, I don’t know that we’re going to return to business as usual,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of UCLA's College of Social Sciences, who studies Hollywood.

That’s good news, too. 2020 saw, Hunt says, “profound diversity” unlike any year before. In a study released Thursday and authored by Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramón, researchers found that 42% of roles overall and 39.7% of lead roles in 2020 films were played by actors of color — roughly in line with U.S. population demographics.

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