The coronavirus epidemic shut down movie theaters worldwide in mid-March and brought production of films to a halt.

 

The Academy also extended the deadline by which movies must be released in order to be eligible for an Oscar nomination to Feb. 28, 2021, from Dec. 31, 2020.

 

Many filmmakers feared their movies would not be finished by the usual year-end Oscar eligibility deadline. Dozens of other movie releases have been moved to 2021.

 

It was only the fourth time in the 93-year history of the Academy Awards that the date has been changed, in 1938, due to floods in Los Angeles, in 1968 because of the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and in 1981 after the attempted assassination of then-President Ronald Reagan.