Since its 1929 inception, the Academy Awards have been considered the crowning event of Hollywood's award season. 

But the annual star-studded evening will be delayed by two months as a result of the coronavirus health crisis.

According to Variety, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the postponement of its 93rd Academy Awards on Monday, explaining that the ceremony has been given a new date of April 25, 2021.

In addition to this, the qualifying release deadline has also been pushed to Feb. 28, 2021, instead of Dec. 31, 2020.

At this news, studio executives were able to breathe a sigh of relief.

With the virus creating a backlog of production work for exec's and their teams to catch up on, a postponement of one of the most important awards ceremonies in the industry was a sliver of good news during a challenging time. 

In fact, the Academy cited this as a major reason for its decision to delay the much-anticipated event. 

“This is a much needed boost for those films who may have been stalled in post-production,” an Academy member said. “Given everything that has been going on, the extra time is important.” 

Before the date switch, several Oscar contenders were considering the possibility of giving up on submitting their work for the 2021 Academy Awards, as they realized they weren't likely to have enough time to wrap production and post-production by the end of 2020.

But now they'll have a chance to reconsider. 

Among the films that could benefit from the extra time are Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel” starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and Baz Luhrman’s untitled Elvis Presley film.

And though no adjusted release dates have been announced at this time, a film like Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of “West Side Story” could change its holiday time release to something closer to nominations voting, which begins March 5 and closes March 10.

In any case, nominations will be announced on March 15 ahead of the Oscars telecast on ABC on April 25.

While no official date changes have been announced for Oscar pre-cursors, including the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards, the PGAs and DGAs, and the Spirit Awards, postponements are expected.