2025 Oscars push nominations back again due to Los Angeles fires, but ceremony not postponed

Awards fans and potential winners alike will have to wait a little longer to find out who snags nominations for the 2025 Oscars.

On Monday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominations announcement will now take place on Thursday, Jan. 23 at 8:30 a.m. ET/5:30 a.m. PT. The nominee announcement was originally slated for this Friday, Jan. 17, but was pushed to Sunday, Jan. 19 in a statement from the Academy last week, amid ongoing devastation from wildfires ravaging Los Angeles.

"We are all devastated by the impact of the fires and the profound losses experienced by so many in our community. The Academy has always been a unifying force within the film industry, and we are committed to standing together in the face of hardship," Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang said in a statement. "Due to the still-active fires in the Los Angeles area, we feel it is necessary to extend our voting period and move the date of our nominations announcement to allow additional time for our members."

Related: Hollywood History: How World War II forced the Academy to rethink the 1942 Oscars

The Academy also shared that a nominees luncheon scheduled for Feb. 10 will no longer take place and the Oscars Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony scheduled for Feb. 18 will be rescheduled for a later date. The Oscars ceremony itself is still slated for Sunday, March 2, despite some calls to postpone.

The nomination voting period has also been extended again, with Academy members now having until Friday, Jan. 17 to cast their votes for potential Oscar winners.

Related: Angelina Jolie, Zoe Saldaña, Zendaya, and more — every 2025 Oscars episode of The Awardist podcast

In last week's announcement, the Academy said an International Feature Film Shortlist screening originally scheduled for Wednesday evening will be rescheduled for a later date in the coming weeks. Several nominee presentations, known as Bake-Offs, were also canceled. Instead, the Sound Branch, Makeup Artists and Hairstylist Branch, and Visual Effects Branch will have an opportunity to review clips from each presentation via the internal platform of the Academy Screening room.

The nominations voting and related events aren't the only things that have been altered by the devastating wildfires across Los Angeles county. Many series halted production for the day, including Grey's Anatomy, Abbott Elementary, Suits LA, and Hacks.

Other awards shows also pivoted, with the SAG Awards shifting their in-person nomination announcement scheduled for this morning to a virtual press release. The annual AFI Awards Luncheon, set for Friday, has been canceled, and the Critics Choice Awards, originally set to take place Sunday, have been postponed to Jan. 26 due to the impact of the fires.

Related: 2025 Oscar nominations predictions: See contenders for Best Picture and acting, from Demi Moore to Wicked

Additionally, several starry premieres were scuttled in the wake of the natural disaster, including those for Wolf Man, Unstoppable, The Pitt, and Better Man.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

The Academy is used to adjusting their Oscars schedule for extenuating circumstances. In 1938, they postponed the Oscars ceremony due to a flood and in both 1968 and 1981. The ceremony was also postponed due to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, respectively.

Most recently, the Academy postponed the 2021 Academy Awards from February to April due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2025 Oscars, hosted by Conan O'Brien, are scheduled to air live Sunday, March 2, on ABC at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly