A boycott by nominees and presenters has forced the cancellation of the planned Golden Globe Awards ceremony, with organizers planning instead to announce the award winners during an hour-long news conference, organizers announced Monday.
"We are all very disappointed that our traditional awards ceremony will not take place this year and that millions of viewers worldwide will be deprived of seeing many of their favorite stars celebrating 2007's outstanding achievements in motion pictures and television," said Jorge Camara, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
"We take some comfort in knowing that this year's Golden Globe Award recipients will be announced on the date originally scheduled," he said.
The cancellation makes the Golden Globes the first major awards-show casualty of the Hollywood writers' strike, which began Nov. 5 over a dispute focusing on residual payments to writers for work distributed via the Internet, iPods, cell phones and other new media.
Screen Actors Guild announced last week that its members appeared to be in "unanimous agreement" that they would not cross the writers' picket line to attend the Golden Globes ceremony, either as award nominees or presenters.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association did not immediately provide additional details about Sunday's announcement scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Beverly Hilton and broadcast live by NBC News.
A red-carpet-type event would be held immediately after the announcement, with winners being given the chance to visit a pressroom for photos and interviews, according to local LA Weekly.
The writers' strike had already forced the cancellation of the People's Choice Awards ceremony, which was scheduled for Tuesday night at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Organizers canceled the red-carpet ceremony, and will instead announce the award winners through a recorded two-hour special television program.
(Xinhua News Agency January 8, 2008)
