After more than three decades of lobbying, and innumerable bruises and broken bones, the Hollywood acrobatics community will finally be recognized in the Oscars.
The Academy of Arts and Sciences of the Academy announced Thursday that it will present a new competitive category for the achievement in the design of acrobatics, with the first prize that will be presented in 2028 in the 100 ° Oscar, in honor of the films released in 2027. The new Oscar for the acrobatics of last year of an award for an award for an award for the award for the prize for the awards for the award for the award for the award for the award for the award for the award for a of two decades, which are debated in the following year.
“Since the first days of cinema, the design of acrobatics has been an integral part of the cinema,” said the CEO of the Academy, Bill Kramer, and the president of the Janet Yang Academy in a joint statement. “We are proud to honor the innovative work of these technical and creative artists, and congratulate them for their commitment and dedication to achieve this transcendental occasion.”
For the Hollywood acrobatics community, the announcement marks a historical milestone in an impulse of decades to recognize. In 1991, veteran Coordinator of Acrobatics Jack Gill began to press for an Oscar for acrobatics, ensuring the support of people such as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Brad Pitt and Arnold Schwarzenegger for the idea. But while the artists of acrobatics are honored every year at the Emmy Awards and the SCREEN actors guild awards, academy leaders rejected the calls to recognize acrobatics on Oscar night or in their scientific and technical prizes not exploited. (The three exceptions: Acrobatics artist Yakima Canutt received a prize from the Honorary Academy in 1967 for developing security devices for specialists, while the specialist turned into director Hal Needham and the Action star of Hong Kong and the pioneer of acrobatics Jackie Chan received Oscar de Lifetime Achievement in 2012 and 2016, respectively).
With acrobatics in box office successes such as “Mad Max: Fury Road” and franchises such as “Mission: Impossible” and “Fast and Furious” increasingly elaborate, the sponsors argued that the recognition of the Oscars was very late. “There is no other department head in the film business that has that kind of pressure where people's lives is at stake,” Gill told The Times last year. “The artists of acrobatics do not want to be actors and walk through the red carpet and all that. What they want is to be recognized among their classmates for doing something that involves real blood, sweat and tears.”
That campaign had been recently headed by director David Leitch, a former interpreter and coordinator who has since directed the action successes such as “Deadpool 2”, “Bullet Train” and “John Wick”. Together with his producer and wife Kelly McCormick on his 87North Productions banner, Leitch worked with Chris O'Hara, a coordinator and designer of acrobatics with unlimited stunts, and others to make presentations in the academy, according to people familiar with the process.
With the action comedy last summer “The Fall Guy”, Leitch said he intended to make a film that he would celebrate and show the trade and ingenuity of the world of acrobatics, including a “cannon roll” that establishes a record that saw a Jeep Cherokee complete eight and average revolutions, more than any previous film. When labeling O'Hara's work in “The Fall Guy” as “Design of Acrobatics” instead of coordination, a subtle but significant change, the filmmakers reflected other crafts recognized by the Academy, such as the design of costumes and production.
In a statement after the announcement, Leitch pointed out the critical role that acrobatics have played in the film show throughout the history of cinema.
“Acrobatics are essential for all film genres and rooted in the history of our industry, from the innovative work of the first pioneers such as Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin, to the inspiring art of the designers of acrobatics, coordinators, artists and choreographers of today,” Leitch said. “This has been a long trip for many of us. Chris O'Hara and I have spent years working to give life to this moment, standing on the shoulders of the professionals of acrobatics who have tirelessly fought for recognition throughout the decades. We are incredibly grateful.”
Although the defenders of a category of tricks argued for a long time that it could help increase the qualifications for the transmission of the Oscar, some academy experts had previously maintained that there were simply very few acrobatics professionals in the organization to justify their own category. But during the last decade, the organization has tripled the number of acrobatics professionals in its ranks to more than 100. In 2023, the Academy moved the acrobatics coordinators, which had previously been classified as members in general, in a branch of production and technology newly created that also houses varied technical and production positions, including main technology officers, script supervisors, choreographers and supervisors Musical
For the acrobatics community, Oscar's lack of recognition had become an increasingly bitter source of frustration, clearly highlighted by the 2019 film of Quentin Tarantino “Once Upon to Time … in Hollywood”, which finally took Pitt an Oscar for his turn as a storage of the 60s.
“That was the great uproar: you can get a prize from the Academy for pretending to be a type of acrobatics, but you cannot get a prize of the Academy for really one,” said O'Hara, who supervised the acrobatics department in “The Fall Guy” and previously worked in films that include “Jurassic World” and “Baby Driver,” The Times said last year.
In a sign that the tide was turning, the Oscar last year included a special tribute to the acrobatics community, presented by the stars of “Fall Guy” Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling and produced by Leitch and McCormick. “They have been a crucial part of our industry since the beginning of the cinema,” Gosling told the crowd that applauded between Riffs to contuse its “Barbenheimer” enmity. “For acrobatics artists and acrobatics coordinators that help make the movies magicen, we greet you.”
The rules on eligibility and vote for the new acrobatics award will be published in 2027, and details about how the prize will be presented have not yet been determined.
