Steven Spielberg Disagrees With Decision To Pre-Record Eight Oscar Categories, Not Optimistic About A Reversal

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Voicing his concern and disappointment over the Motion Picture Academy’s controversial decision to move the presentation of eight categories to the hour before the actual ABC Oscar telecast begins at 5 p.m.

PT on March 27, Steven Spielberg has become the most powerful voice yet to express his opposition to the idea.In an exclusive interview after a screening Sunday of West Side Story on the Fox lot, Spielberg, a three-time Oscar winner who is not only nominated for Best Picture and Director again this year but also serves on the Academy’s Board of Governors, told me he felt the need to make a statement.“I disagree with the decision made by the executive committee.

I feel very strongly that this is perhaps the most collaborative medium in the world. All of us make movies together, we become a family where one craft is just as indispensable as the next,” the 19-time Oscar nominee and Thalberg Award winner told me. “I feel that at the Academy Awards there is no above the line, there is no below the line.

All of us are on the same line bringing the best of us to tell the best stories we possibly can. And that means for me  we should all have a seat at the supper table together live at 5.”That of course is a reference to the actual ABC broadcast start time.