Cooler temperatures — and maybe some showers — headed to SoCal this weekend. And let’s face it, we don’t need a reason to party this time of year.
The big question for L.A.’s Westside this weekend, however, was who would host this year’s Oscars?
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Monday that it had agreed to host the 91st annual Academy Awards ceremony. The event will air live on ABC on March 2 on ABC at 8 p.m. ET. The ceremony will be broadcast on the CBS TV network and the NBC network.
The ceremony will be held at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland and will be simulcast on HBO. (See L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan’s Oscars-previewing liveblog with a behind-the-scenes look at what to expect.)
There was a lot of speculation that this particular year, with the addition of streaming video giant Netflix, might end up being too big and too unwieldy for smaller movie theaters. Will this be the year the Oscars move to bigger, more-populous venues?
We’ve seen a number of smaller cinemas and smaller movie theaters in L.A. and in other cities like Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago move to streaming or digital-on-demand services such as Netflix, Amazon and Google.
But the Oscars has been traditionally hosted at the Dolby Theater because of the venue’s history and the tradition of hosting the Academy Awards. This year, there’s also the added benefit of a live audience in person who can ask questions of the nominees — for the first time.
The move will help the Oscars “bridge the gap between Hollywood and the rest of America,” said Bob Pittman, the Dolby Theater’s executive vice president of operations, in a statement.
There are five nominees whose films will be presented in the televised ceremony:
Best Original Song
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Picture
Best
