While the Oscars remain the most respected and prestigious awards ceremony for film, many have often complained about the overly serious atmosphere of the annual event, and the fact that the Academy rarely honors the genre films that the masses love so much. As a seeming answer to those complaints, MTV created the annual MTV Movie Awards, a much less serious ceremony that often hands out awards to blockbusters.
The MTV Movie Awards were first broadcast in 1992, and have been a staple of the network ever since, despite the MTV of today being a radically different programming landscape than it was back then. Unlike MTV's Video Music Awards, the network's Movie Awards were initially taped in advance, then broadcast a few days later. This changed in 2007, went the ceremony began broadcasting live, adding a more spontaneous flare to the proceedings.
That was at least until last year, when MTV made the call to move the 2016 Movie Awards back to the pre-taped format. However, it appears that MTV has quickly thought better of that decision, today announcing that the 2017 ceremony will once again be broadcast live. Additionally, the network is set to make a major change to the event: the MTV Movie Awards will now be known as the MTV Movie & TV Awards, and will also present trophies to their picks for the best of the small screen as well. The revised ceremony will air on Sunday, May 7 at 8pm EST. Network President Chris McCarthy had this to say in the official press release:
“We’re living in a golden age of content, and great storytelling and characters resonate regardless of whether you’re watching it in a theater or on TV. The new ‘MTV Movie & TV Awards’ will celebrate even more of the brightest, bravest, funniest and most shared films and TV shows resonating across youth culture.”
The 2017 MTV Movie & TV Awards will emanate from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, which previously played host to the event in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2005. Specific categories for the TV side have yet to be revealed, as has whether the amount of film-related awards will be cut down to accommodate the addition of TV.
A host for the event also has yet to be determined. Unlike the Oscars -- which tend to use mostly late-night hosts and stand-up comics -- the MTV Movie Awards have quite the eclectic line-up of emcees to date, including Samuel L. Jackson, Lindsay Lohan, and Russell Brand. The 2016 ceremony was jointly hosted by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Kevin Hart, who were then promoting their film Central Intelligence.
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The 2017 MTV Movie & TV Awards air Sunday, May 7 at 8pm EST.
Source: MTV