The 93rd Oscars have been postponed by eight weeks to April 25 after the coronavirus pandemic shuttered movie theaters and desolate on Hollywood's release calendar, the Academy said Monday.

With many studio blockbusters and indie arthouse movies forced to push back their release dates until theaters reopen, the cut-off date for Oscar-eligible films has also been extended from December 31, 2020 to February 28, 2021.

`Our hope, in extending the eligibility period and our Awards date, is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalized for something beyond anyone's control,` said Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson in a statement.

The movie industry's biggest night was originally scheduled for February 28, 2021. Monday's move was prompted by concerns that a field consisting only of films released in 2020 would not be as broad or competitive as in previous years.

The Academy Awards have been postponed before - after Los Angeles flooded in 1938, Martin Luther King Jr's assassination in 1968 and the shooting of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 - but never by more than a week.

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Hollywood's biggest night has been postponed. The 2021 #Oscars will no longer take place on Feb. 28 as planned. Find out what other major changes were announced and how this affects the eligibility window, at the link in bio. (📸:@gettyentertainment)

A post shared by Hollywood Reporter (@hollywoodreporter) on Jun 15, 2020 at 12:37pm PDT

The Academy's long-delayed Museum of Motion Pictures, previously scheduled to open in Los Angeles this December, will now open on April 30, 2021.

The Television Academy said Monday its Creative Arts Emmys - dozens of technical awards, usually handed out the weekend before the main Emmys - will be replaced with a `virtual event.`