Annie Awards Ceremony Postponed, Moved To Virtual Format Due To COVID
BURBANK (CBSLA) — The 49th Annie Awards, which honor animated entertainment productions, was postponed Thursday and moved to an online format due to COVID-19.
The ceremony, originally set for Feb. 26 at UCLA's Royce Hall, will now be presented virtually on March 12, the event's organizer ASIFA-Hollywood announced.
"When we announced that the Annies would be in person this year on February 26, the Omicron variant was not even on the horizon," Frank Gladstone, ASIFA's executive director, said in a statement. "But now it is here and so highly infectious that, after much debate and discussion, ASIFA's board of directors has decided, in an abundance of caution, to once again move to a virtual ceremony. We've also moved the date of the event by two weeks to give our production crew time to gather and edit the huge amount of additional material it takes to construct the virtual ceremony."
Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon" is the leading nominee for this year's awards, with 10 overall nods, including best-animated feature.
"Encanto," "Luca," "Sing 2" and "The Mitchells vs. The Machines" are also nominated for the top film award.
The event can be viewed at www.annieawards.org on March 12.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
