LOS ANGELES • Next year's pandemic-hit Oscars will be produced by Contagion (2011) director Steven Soderbergh, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Tuesday, as Hollywood's biggest night finally begins to take shape.

The ceremony set to take place on April 25 has been postponed due to the coronavirus and seen its film eligibility rules relaxed due to the lack of open cinemas, while its format still remains unclear.

But the Los Angeles-based academy on Tuesday unveiled "a dream team who will respond directly to these times" in creating the show.

"The upcoming Oscars is the perfect occasion for innovation and for re-envisioning the possibilities for the awards show," said president David Rubin and chief executive Dawn Hudson in a statement.

Soderbergh, 57, who won a Best Director Oscar for Traffic (2000), will be joined in planning the ceremony by former Grammy Awards producer Jesse Collins and film producer Stacey Sher.

He and Sher had worked together on Erin Brockovich (2000) as well as Contagion, which was praised at the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic for its eerie prescience.

With most of California including Los Angeles under a new lockdown due to Covid-19, organisers have yet to decide whether the 93rd Oscars will take place in-person, emulate television's Emmys which took place "virtually" in September, or opt for some combination of the two.

The ceremony has been postponed by eight weeks, with the cut-off date for eligible films extended by two months to end-February. The academy, seen as the apex body of Hollywood's film industry, also eased eligibility rules to let movies that skip the big screen and appear on streaming platforms contend for Oscars.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE