It will be a long time before everyone forgets the videos of people dressed in protective tuxedos (opens in new tab) and made to wait in front of the homes of the 2020 Emmy nominees, ready to safely hand over their gold statues at the largely virtual event (opens in new tab). Between this and the social distancing policies that are expected to be in place for much of the next year, many questions swirl about what Hollywood's awards ceremony in 2021 will look like. when you factor in the enormous damage that 2020 did to the entire filmmaking industry, next year's awards ceremony be quite different from years past.

First, the Golden Globes have been postponed from the usual early January to the end of February. Meanwhile, the powers that be at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are reportedly considering a face-to-face Oscar ceremony, which has also been pushed back to the end of April Here is everything we know so far about what the "biggest night in Hollywood" will look like in 2021.

The Oscars are usually scheduled at the end of February or early March to close out the awards season, but in 2020 they were moved up to early February to counter awards overload and induce high ratings. That didn't have much effect (opens in new tab), so the Academy Awards' new later date shouldn't have much impact on the ever-declining ratings; the 2021 ceremony will be broadcast live on ABC on April 25 and held at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.

If so, it has not yet been announced. However, it seems unlikely: for one thing, both of the last two award ceremonies have had no host (opens in new tab) and have been considered relatively successful (low ratings notwithstanding). For another, after the 2020 Oscars, ABC executive Robert Mills told "Entertainment Tonight" (opens in new tab) that if they decide to bring back a host, that person would have to be booked well in advance.

And finally, it would be hard to find someone in Hollywood willing to take on the job, which past host Jimmy Kimmel described as a "no-win job." Academy Awards hosts are often ridiculed for months or years after doing a less than stellar job (ahem, Anne Hathaway and James Franco), and those who accept the job are quickly scrutinized, forcing some to turn it down, in the case of Kevin Hart in 2019, Academy is even scrambling to produce a show without a host.

The pandemic is perhaps most notable for its lack of targeted films. With movie theaters struggling to stay safely open year-round, countless films have either postponed their release dates until after 2021 or skipped theatrical releases altogether, opting for streaming of all films. As a result, the Academy updated its eligibility rules in October (open in new tab) to include straight-to-streaming films in its awards slate if their theatrical release was originally scheduled. Additionally, another update to the theatrical release rules allows drive-ins to qualify as official qualifying theaters as long as they screen Oscar nominated films at least once a day for one week

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The Academy is looking to further expand the pool of eligible films with a new timeline. This year's Academy Awards will be held in April because the qualifying period for release dates will extend well beyond the usual December 31 to February 28, 2021. Accordingly, preliminary voting will begin on February 1, followed by voting for the nominees from March 1-5. Nominations will be announced on March 15, and official voting will begin a month later and run through April 20. The winners will be announced a few days later at the awards ceremony on April 25.

The Academy and ABC have yet to provide details on what the actual awards ceremony will look like in the COVID era. A source told Variety (opens in new tab) in early December that organizers are exploring safety protocols that might allow for a face-to-face ceremony, but have not yet decided anyway. "We find ourselves in uncharted territory this year and will continue to work with our partners at the Academy to ensure that next year's show is a safe and celebratory event," Karey Burke, president of ABC Entertainment, said in a recent release (opens in new tab ) regarding the updated Academy Awards timeline. Once again, protective gear is on the line.

There are several changes for the upcoming 93rd Academy Awards that have nothing to do with COVID: The April ballot (opens in new tab) reduced the number of categories by one and combined the awards for sound mixing and sound editing into a single sound award. In addition, the Original Composition Award category now requires that 60 percent of a film's music must be original music, while music from franchise and sequel films must be 80 percent new. In addition, the International Feature Film Award category, previously left to a small committee of volunteers, is now open to all Academy voters

for preliminary voting.

And in a long overdue eco-friendly update, this will be the last year that physical copies of eligible films (screener DVDs, score CDs, printed scripts) will be distributed to voters. Wait, everyone still has a DVD player.

It's been a very tough, very strange year, but somehow we're still blessed with an amazing number of Oscar-worthy films (open in new tab). In the Best Picture category, Netflix is expected to reign supreme with high-quality offerings like "Mank," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," "The Trial of the Chicago 7," "Da 5 Bloods," and "Hillbilly Elegy" The other candidates include Pixar's "The Trial of the Chicago 7," "Da 5 Bloods" and "Hillbilly Elegy. Other contenders include Pixar's "Soul," "Judas and the Black Messiah" (to be released on HBO Max in early 2021 as part of a partnership with Warner Bros. (open in new tab)), and the Francis McDormand-starrer " Nomadland, among others.

Elsewhere, in the major acting categories, Amy Adams may finally get a statuette for "Hillbilly Elegy" (her seventh nomination is appealing) (but McDormand, Viola Davis, Kate Winslet, Carey Mulligan ), who will be competing for Best Actress against some big names. Meanwhile, Chadwick Boseman (open in new tab) could win an Oscar for his lead role in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom or his supporting role in Da 5 Bloods, becoming only the third actor to win an Oscar posthumously.