Over 70 Hollywood heavy-hitters slam controversial Oscar changes in open letter

With the Academy Awards lower than three weeks away, greater than 70 outstanding movie professionals — together with Oscar winners James Cameron, Kathleen Kennedy, John Williams and Guillermo del Toro — issued a letter Wednesday urging the academy to reverse a controversial plan they argue would relegate some nominees to “the standing of second-class residents.”

Addressed to academy President David Rubin, the letter argues that the choice introduced final month handy out 5 below-the-line awards and the three quick movie awards within the hour earlier than the Oscars telecast would do “irreparable harm” to the Oscars’ popularity by “demeaning the very crafts that, of their most excellent expressions, make the artwork of filmmaking worthy of celebration.”

The letter is the most recent in a string of criticisms of the transfer from varied guilds, trade teams and academy members in addition to plenty of this 12 months’s nominees, together with Jane Campion and Steven Spielberg.

In response to the plan, winners’ acceptance speeches for the eight affected classes — movie modifying, make-up and hairstyling, unique rating, manufacturing design, sound, documentary quick topic, animated quick and live-action quick — can be edited to spotlight probably the most emotional moments, with the clips then integrated into the reside broadcast.

Practically half of the signers of the brand new letter are movie composers, together with quite a few Oscar winners like Alexandre Desplat, Howard Shore, Thomas Newman, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Williams, who holds the report for probably the most nominations for any dwelling particular person with 52.

“Essential inventive crafts like music scoring, movie modifying, manufacturing design, make-up, hairstyling and sound will at all times deserve the identical respect and recognition as crafts like appearing, directing and visible results,” the letter reads.

Rubin and academy Chief Govt Daybreak Hudson have defended the transfer, saying that every one honorees can be handled with respect. “I can’t think about that we’re not going to ship the Oscar expertise that each the nominees and the viewers have been wanting and are dreaming about,” Rubin advised Deadline in an interview final week. “We really feel actually good about this plan. It feels inclusive and respectful and celebratory.”

Even because the controversy continues to swirl, plans are transferring forward for the present. On Wednesday, ABC launched its first promo for the telecast that includes this 12 months’s trio of hosts, Amy Schumer, Regina Corridor and Wanda Sykes.

Academy leaders have recommended they felt compelled to make troublesome modifications this 12 months to safeguard the way forward for the Oscars, which plummeted to record-low rankings with final 12 months’s pandemic-dampened present. “We should prioritize the tv viewers to extend viewer engagement and hold the present important, kinetic, and related,” Rubin wrote in his Feb. 22 letter to academy members saying the change.

That argument has obtained fierce pushback, nonetheless, with many academy members and cinema lovers insisting that the Oscars symbolize greater than only a TV present and that makes an attempt to pander to a wider viewers undermine the very artwork kind they’re meant to have fun. Some say the academy’s new fan favourite award — wherein common moviegoers vote for his or her favourite movie of 2021 through Twitter, with the winner introduced on the present — solely rubs salt into the wound. (The web contest will not be an official class, and the winner won’t obtain an Oscar.)

“To decrease any of those particular person classes within the pursuit of rankings and short-term income does irreparable harm to the Academy’s standing as neutral arbiters and accountable stewards of our trade’s most essential awards,” the letter reads.

In 2018, the academy introduced an analogous plan to shift 4 award shows off the reside present, solely to scrap the concept shortly earlier than the 2019 Oscars within the wake of trade pushback. However this 12 months, with ABC pressuring the academy to make what the community deems overdue modifications to the customarily bloated telecast, it seems much less probably that the group will reverse its resolution.

”We simply needed to make modifications,” Hudson advised Deadline final week. “We needed to look [out] for the long run for this present and for the group. Is that this the appropriate reply? I don’t know. We have to do this, assess, and transfer ahead.”

The complete letter is beneath:

Pricey President Rubin:

We the undersigned urge you within the strongest potential phrases, alongside along with your colleagues on the Awards Committee, to reverse your resolution to take away the presentation of eight awards classes from the reside telecast of this 12 months’s Academy Awards ceremony, together with Greatest Unique Rating, Movie Modifying, Manufacturing Design, Make-up and Hairstyling, Sound, Documentary Brief Topic and each Dwell Motion and Animated Brief Movie.

For almost a century, the Academy Awards has represented the gold customary in recognizing and honoring all the important crafts in filmmaking. Now, as we strategy the Oscars’ a hundredth 12 months, we’re deeply troubled that this gold customary is being tarnished by valuing some filmmaking disciplines over others and relegating these others to the standing of second-class citizen. Essential inventive crafts like music scoring, movie modifying, manufacturing design, make-up, hairstyling, and sound will at all times deserve the identical respect and recognition as crafts like appearing, directing, and visible results. To decrease any of those particular person classes within the pursuit of rankings and short-term income does irreparable harm to the Academy’s standing as neutral arbiters and accountable stewards of our trade’s most essential awards.

In search of new audiences by making the telecast extra entertaining is a laudable and essential objective, however this can’t be achieved by demeaning the very crafts that, of their most excellent expressions, make the artwork of filmmaking worthy of celebration.

Sincerely,

Peter Baert

Bruce Berman

Volker Bertelmann

Terence Blanchard

Scott Bomar

Nicholas Britell

James Cameron

Milena Canonero

John Corigliano

John Debney

Guillermo del Toro

Alexandre Desplat

Ramin Djawadi

Amie Doherty

Tan Dun

Laura Engel

Bruce A. Evans

Sven Faulconer

George Fenton

Dante Ferretti

Simon Franglen

Raynold Gideon

Michael Gorfaine

Peter Gregson

Dave Grusin

Trevor Gureckis

Hildur Guðnadóttir

Alex Heffes

Nate Heller

David Hirschfelder

Natalie Holt

James Newton Howard

Steve Jablonsky

Jónsi

Federico Jusid

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek

Kathleen Kennedy

Geoffrey Kirkland

Philip Klein

Maria Machado

Patty Macmillan

Judianna Makovsky

Richard Marvin

Nami Melumad

Robert Messinger

Thomas Newman

David Newman

Anne Nikitin

Dustin O’Halloran

Atli Örvarsson

John Powell

Steven Value

Michael Rosenberg

Joe Roth

Sam Schwartz

Lisbeth Scott

Theodore Shapiro

Howard Shore

Alan Silvestri

Sam Slater

Alex Somers

Dante Spinotti

Herdís Stefánsdóttir

Vittorio Storaro

Tamar-kali

Dean Tavoularis

Fernando Velázquez

Chris Walden

Chris Westlake

Nathan Whitehead

John Williams

Andrew Zack

Lili Fini Zanuck