by Conan Simmons – June 29, 2021 – 8:18 pm
The Directors Guild of America has announced the date for the 74th annual DGA Awards celebrating the movies and tv shows of 2021. The 74th DGA Awards will be held March 12, 2022.
Eligible films must be released between March 1 and December 31, 2021. However, there is a caveat.
To be eligible for the top prize of Feature Film the movie must play in theaters only for a minimum of 7 days before being shown on other exhibition outlets, pointedly streaming.
However, there is a caveat to that caveat.
As the pandemic of 2020 saw the rules relaxed last year to allow for day-and-date streaming, this year the rule will only remain in application for films released between March 1 through June 14 in light of the pandemic still having an affect on theater closures. Any film released from June 15 onward must comply with the exclusively in theaters rule.
This puts a lot of pressure on Hollywood majors, especially Warner Bros. which, under CEO Jason Kilar, has set the entirety of their 2021 slate of films to debut day-and-date streaming on HBO Max. This will prevent anything like their success with last years ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ from happening for any of their upcoming films from the prequel to ‘The Sopranos’ gangster drama, ‘The Many Saints of Newark’, to Denis Villeneuve’s highly anticipated sci-fi epic ‘Dune’. None of Warner Bros. films will be eligible to be nominated unless leadership changes quickly and makes these films suddenly theater exclusive.
Disney may also be under pressure as they seek to send several films day-and-date streaming on Disney+. Though a film like Marvel’s ‘Black Widow’ is the type of movie that very, very rarely gets nominated for such awards so Disney is probably less concerned than rival Warner Bros.
Ironically, Universal started a lot of the streaming controversy last year when it sent ‘Trolls 2: World Tour’ to streaming day-and-date upsetting many theater owners. Now, Universal has the controversy under control and is enjoying the biggest film debut since 2019 with ‘F9: The Fast Saga’ which would be eligible under DGA rules.