Over 70 Film Professionals Sign a Letter Protesting an Academy Decision Ahead of Oscars 2022

Some of Hollywood’s biggest A-listers are speaking out.

Ahead of the 2022 Oscars, more than 70 prominent film professionals, including James Cameron, Kathleen Kennedy, John Williams and Guillermo del Toro signed a letter Wednesday (March 9) urging the Academy to reverse a major decision.

Click inside to read more…

The letter to President David Rubin states that the decision to hand out five below-the-line awards and the three short film awards in the hour before the telecast would do “irreparable damage” by “demeaning the very crafts that, in their most outstanding expressions, make the art of filmmaking worthy of celebration.”

The winners’ acceptance speeches for the eight impacted categories — film editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, production design, sound, documentary short subject, animated short and live-action short — will be edited with clips incorporated into the live broadcast.

“Critical artistic crafts like music scoring, film editing, production design, makeup, hairstyling and sound will always deserve the same respect and recognition as crafts like acting, directing and visual effects,” the letter reads.

Another major star also just spoke out about the decision.

Check out the full letter, via LA Times…

Dear President Rubin:

We the undersigned urge you in the strongest possible terms, along with your colleagues on the Awards Committee, to reverse your decision to remove the presentation of eight awards categories from the live telecast of this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, including Best Original Score, Film Editing, Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, Documentary Short Subject and both Live Action and Animated Short Film.

For nearly a century, the Academy Awards has represented the gold standard in recognizing and honoring all of the essential crafts in filmmaking. Now, as we approach the Oscars’100th year, we are deeply troubled that this gold standard is being tarnished by valuing some filmmaking disciplines over others and relegating those others to the status of second-class citizen. Critical artistic crafts like music scoring, film editing, production design, makeup, hairstyling, and sound will always deserve the same respect and recognition as crafts like acting, directing, and visual effects. To diminish any of these individual categories in the pursuit of ratings and short-term profits does irreparable damage to the Academy’s standing as impartial arbiters and responsible stewards of our industry’s most important awards.

Seeking new audiences by making the telecast more entertaining is a laudable and important goal, but this cannot be achieved by demeaning the very crafts that, in their most outstanding expressions, make the art 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 Price

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