Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, who won the Best Director Academy Award in 2000 for Traffic, is on the team that’s producing the next Oscars telecast. 

Soderbergh, also known for Erin Brockovich, Magic Mike and the Ocean’s Eleven film series, will co-produce along with Emmy-nominated producer Jesse Collins and Oscar-nominated producer Stacey Sher, Academy President David Rubin announced Tuesday.  It will be the first time producing the awards telecast for all three. 

The show will be broadcast live on ABC worldwide on Sunday, April 25, 2021.  The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) insists it will stage a live telecast, unlike the virtual soirees to which fans are becoming accustomed because of COVID-19.

Referencing the pandemic and its effect on the industry, Rubin and AMPAS CEO Dawn Hudson said, “The upcoming Oscars is the perfect occasion for innovation and for re-envisioning the possibilities for the awards show. This is a dream team who will respond directly to these times.”

In the same statement, Soderbergh, Sher and Collins added,”We’re thrilled and terrified in equal measure. Because of the extraordinary situation we’re all in, there’s an opportunity to focus on the movies and the people who make them in a new way, and we hope to create a show that really FEELS like the movies we all love.”

By Stephen Iervolino
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