TV Veteran Jesse Collins to Co-Produce 2021 Oscars

Emmy-nominated television veteran Jesse Collins has joined the producing team for the 93rd Oscars.

Collins is partnering with Oscar-nominated producer Stacey Sher and Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh to bring the pandemic-stricken broadcast to TV audiences, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday.

“We’re thrilled and terrified in equal measure. Because of the extraordinary situation we’re all in, there’s an opportunity to focus on the movies and the people who make them in a new way, and we hope to create a show that really FEELS like the movies we all love,” said Collins, Sher and Soderbergh in a joint statement.

Added Academy President David Rubin and Academy CEO Dawn Hudson, “The upcoming Oscars is the perfect occasion for innovation and for re-envisioning the possibilities for the awards show. This is a dream team who will respond directly to these times.”

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Welcome to the team, @JesseCollinsEnt, @StaceySher and Steven Soderbergh! Meet the 93rd #Oscars producers. https://t.co/D8iCIdiyyn

— The Academy (@TheAcademy) December 8, 2020

Collins has produced a string of awards shows, including the Grammy Awards, the BET Awards, and the Soul Train Awards, as well as BET’s Sunday Best, The New Edition Story, and American Soul. He earned an Emmy nomination for the 61st Grammy Awards in 2019. Collins also has been tapped to co-executive produce the upcoming Grammy Awards and executive produce the Pepsi Super Bowl LV Halftime Show, both in early 2021. He is the founder and CEO of Jesse Collins Entertainment.

Soderbergh won a directing Oscar for Traffic in 2000 and earned a nomination for directing Erin Brockovich that same year. A writer, director, producer, cinematographer and editor, he has directed dozens of films and television series in a three-decade career. Among the many high-profile projects he helmed are Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), Out of Sight (1998), Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Contagion (2011), Magic Mike (2012), and Cinemax series The Knick.

Sher earned Best Picture Oscar nominations for Django Unchained (2012) and Erin Brockovich (2000). She has produced or executive produced more than two dozen major motion pictures, including Pulp Fiction (1994), Contagion (2011), and The Hateful Eight (2015).

The 93rd Oscars will air live on ABC on Sunday, April 25, 2021. The show will be televised in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

The image above is courtesy Shutterstock and AMPAS.