The Golden Globes 2021 Grab the Old Oscar Date, February 28
While critics groups weigh their year-end timing as buzz-boosters for awards contenders, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which usually stages its glitzy awards fete in early January, has grabbed the February 28 date abandoned by the Oscars for the 78th Golden Globes celebration.
The Academy has moved the 93rd Oscar ABC telecast two months later to April 25, when Oscar voters will honor the best films released between January 2020 and February 2021. In the next few weeks, the HFPA will provide their latest set of revised eligibility requirements: submissions are usually due no later than the first week of December, around the same time the critics groups start voting.
As the awards calendar is upended, the major awards groups and 2021 festivals are following, as expected, in lockstep with the Academy, which is calling the tune. Fall festivals may have a lesser role in curating Oscar contenders. The Hollywood Guilds, from SAG to the PGA, WGA, and DGA are now jockeying for key March slots between the Globes and the Oscars.
Due to uncertainties from the pandemic, including production restarts and theater re-openings, this delay gives the awards ecosystem a chance to reorient itself in early 2021, as some major Hollywood movies such as Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel,” starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, need time to finish and reach movie audiences.
Produced by Dick Clark Productions and broadcast on NBC, the Golden Globes is the most watched awards show that celebrates both film and television (the 2020 telecast averaged a 4.7 rating among adults 18-49 and 18.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research). While the 90 Hollywood Foreign Press Association members do vote on animated and foreign-language films, they do not include awards for shorts or documentaries.
The 2021 Globes will be hosted by comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and will air live coast to coast from 5-8 p.m. PT/8-11 p.m. ET on NBC. The show is available in more than 210 territories worldwide.
Will this year’s Globes be surrounded by the usual intense weekend partying, from the Beverly Hilton and its circuit of after-parties to private fetes all over town? We shall see what that mood looks like.
