In case you haven’t heard (even though most people were talking about this yesterday — sorry today is that slow), next year’s Oscars will return to the month of March, due the Academy’s need to get out of the way of the Winter Olympics. For some of you, this may mean you have extra time to see the nominees. For most of you, this also means you’ll have more time to complain about how the Academy snubbed Wolverine, Avatar, Up or whatever other movie you think deserved a Best Picture nod. As for us film bloggers, the delay gives us additional time to speculate, predict and otherwise cover awards season to death.

As if this year’s Oscars didn’t seem over-blogged enough, I can only expect there will be even more movie sites, including those specializing in the Oscars, next year. And therefore I can only expect that by the time the Oscar telecast airs on March 7 I will be so sick of the whole film awards concept that I’ll almost not even live-Tweet the big night.

Reactions to the Academy’s announcement from other Oscar bloggers after the jump:

Despite the fact that most of these guys are the reason the season feels overlong, they almost seem to be complaining that they have an extra two weeks to beat the dead horse:

• “Those who have been privately arguing that a shorter Oscar season might punch up the appeal of the Academy Awards just got sucker-punched by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,” write Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes at The Carpetbagger, noting that the move “adds two weeks to the awards season, which already seemed a tad long by the time the ceremony was held on Feb. 22 of this year.”
• “The seemingly endless awards season will be a little longer next year,” writes Kristopher Tapley at In Contention. “Buckle up.”
• “14 more days to savor the anxiety anticipation,” writes Ryan Adams at Awards Daily.

For anyone wondering why the Oscars were pushed back so far back, despite the Olympics’ end date being February 28, Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere got the scoop this morning:

“The reason for the new Oscar date,’ an insider confided right after the item posted, “is that a lot of the below-the-line [guys] who work the Oscars will be working the opening and closing Olympic ceremonies in Vancouver and will be out of the country during the ramp-up to the show. They just need the time.”

And now some commentary from the non-specialists:

• Cinematical’s Monika Bartyzel wonders if the move is actually beneficial to Oscar hopefuls or the Academy ceremony:
  

  Does it matter? Would an extra week mean that we might get an Oscar ceremony with more accurate nominations? Doubt it. And maybe they’re just passing up a big cross-promotional opportunity — stars skiing down the slopes to accept awards, skating over ice … at least it would make up for all the highly congratulatory talk, should it seep into next year’s ceremony as well.

• Chris Hewitt at Empire also would have preferred the Oscars to stay put:
  

  Obviously, this doesn’t mean a lot in the long run – the Oscars will still be handed out, people will still grumble about who won what and we’ll still secretly wish that they’d ask Stephen Colbert to host. But we’re a little annoyed that the Academy didn’t grow a pair and go head-to-head with the Winter Olympics.

• Gregory Ellwood at HitFix sees more reason the date change sucks for some people:
  

  Who might loose in all this?  It may amount to only two extra weeks, but that could be enough for studios nervous about their prestige pics to skip the trifecta of festivals that traditionally kicks off awards season: Venice, Telluride and Toronto.  And considering the importance of the Hollywood machine at those events, that could be very dire news.

  Don’t be surprised to see some release date shuffling due to this announcement.  Fox Searchlight currently has “Amelia” on Oct. 23.  Is that too early now?  Does Paul Greengrass’ “Green Zone” open limited to avoid the December rush?  The news will certainly make distributors big and small take a second look at their release patterns.

• Richard Brody at The Front Row sees further film release issues: “With the Oscars in March, it will be even tougher for new releases to break through early in the year, meaning that calendars will likely be even more crowded in the fall.”
• Andy Scott at Oscar and the City has a different feeling: “I’m personally all for these kinds of delays. It opens the door for potential surprises, which seem to be a thing of the past these days.”