The Academy Adds New Category to the Oscars Recognizing Best Casting
The Academy has announced the addition of a new category to the Oscars to recognize outstanding achievement in casting. It will be first included in the 98th Oscars ceremony (which will take place in 2026), but it remains an open question whether ABC will include it in the telecast.
Outstanding Achievement in Casting will be the first category added to the awards ceremony since the 2002 edition, in which Oustanding Animated Feature Film was added. The Academy merged Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing into a single category, Best Sound, a couple of years ago, which means that, with casting, the total number of categories goes up to 24 again.
Academy president Janet Yang and CEO Bill Kramer said in a statement (via The Hollywood Reporter):
“Casting directors play an essential role in filmmaking, and as the Academy evolves, we are proud to add casting to the disciplines that we recognize and celebrate. We congratulate our casting directors branch members on this exciting milestone and for their commitment and diligence throughout this process.”
Richard Hicks, Kim Taylor-Coleman and Debra Zane, governors of the Academy’s branch of casting directors, added:
“On behalf of the members of the casting directors branch, we’d like to thank the board of governors, the awards committee and Academy leadership for their support. This award is a deserved acknowledgment of our casting directors’ exceptional talents and a testament to the dedicated efforts of our branch.”
However, according to Matt Belloni’s “What I’m Hearing” newsletter for Puck News, the broadcast deal between the Academy and ABC prevents the former from adding new categories to the telecast. An alternative could be to bump another category out of the telecast, a move that they already tried two years ago and was met with a major pushback. At this point, it looks like the Academy will have to present it either before the telecast airs, or during one of the commercial breaks.
The pressure has been on the Academy for years to add this category to the awards, which is already recognized by the SAG Awards. Other petitions include a category that recognizes stunt performers and voice actors. In response, the Academy would probably say: “One thing at a time, please.” Whether they should or not, I’m honestly not convinced yet and can see arguments on both sides.
Casting directors are obviously a huge part of filmmaking, but movies get cast in all sorts of different ways and it’s not always the casting director’s merit. Obviously, the same could be said about cinematographers or editors — who’s to say that the color palette chosen for the movie was the cinematographer’s call or the director’s? I’m usually apprehensive when it comes to implementing major changes to such a traditional ceremony, and the fact is that the Oscars are so special because they have so few categories. At the same time, Academy Award winner Sarah Halley Finn has a nice ring to it.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
