The Academy Museum’s board of trustees has elected Netflix’s Ted Sarandos as chair, as well as elected Miky Lee as vice-chair and Jim Gianopulos as treasurer. Kimberly Steward has been re-elected as secretary.
The Academy Museum is working toward an opening on April 2021 following next year’s Oscars after years of delays. Sarandos fills the role after former NBCUniversal executive Ron Meyer stepped down from his role as trustees chair. Meyer had served in the role since its creation in 2017. Sarandos served in the role in the interim after previously being the museum’s vice chair.
“Growing up a movie lover, I always wished for a place like the Academy Museum–somewhere I could lose myself in the magic of film. I am both honored and inspired to serve as chair, alongside the magnificent Board of Trustees and museum staff, as we work towards our April 2021 opening,” Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, said in a statement.
“It is a privilege to work with such an esteemed board of trustees, whose vision, expertise, and wealth of experience is helping to shape the Academy Museum into the premier film destination in the world. We are taking great strides toward our opening with the leadership and guidance of Ted Sarandos, Miky Lee, Jim Gianopulos, Kimberly Steward and the entire Board,” Bill Kramer, director and president of the Academy Museum, said in a statement.
The full list of the Academy Museum’s board of trustees includes: Ted Sarandos, chair; Miky Lee, vice-chair; Kimberly Steward, secretary; Jim Gianopulos, treasurer; Patricia S. Bellinger, Jason Blum, Arnaud Boetsch, Olivier de Givenchy, Laura Dern, David Dolby, Sidonie Seydoux Dumas, Ray Halbritter, Tom Hanks, Dawn Hudson, Ryan Murphy, Isis Mussenden, Katherine Oliver, Alejandro Ramírez Magaña, Dominic Ng, David Rubin, Regina K. Scully, Emma Thomas, Diane von Furstenberg, and Kevin Yeaman.
Meyer stepped down as chair of the Academy Museum last month after he disclosed that an unnamed individual tried to “extort” him and “falsely implicate” NBCUniversal in the wake of a “consensual” extramarital affair with a woman eight years ago.
The Academy Museum before the coronavirus was meant to open in December 2020, but will now be delayed along with the Oscars to April 2021. The museum will feature inaugural exhibits curated by Spike Lee and Pedro Almodóvar, a retrospective on the work of animation master Hayao Miyazaki and other exhibits surrounding the making of “The Matrix,” “The Wizard of Oz” and the history of the Academy Awards.
Look Inside the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures: How Finished Is It? (Photos)
The Academy has announced that the opening date for its long-awaited, much-delayed, very expensive Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will be April 30, 2021. Before the lockdown hit, it invited the press to tour the building in early February, 2020, where we saw a lot of almost-finished spaces that will eventually contain exhibits relating to film history. Here's what it looked like, along with some plans and renderings of what it will look like when it's open.
A plan for the museum shows two theaters, three floors of exhibition space and a special events space on the top floor.
The cylinder that fronts the 1939 Streamline Moderne building that formerly housed the May Co. department story is covered with 350,000 one-inch-square gold tiles. Two-thirds of them have been restored, and the other one-third replaced by new tiles from the original manufacturer.
The lobby, shown in an artist's rendering, will open onto a gift shop, a restaurant and the Spielberg Family Gallery.
The current state of the lobby, whose interior will retain an industrial feel, is undergoing lighting and color tests.
The right-hand side of the lobby, as seen from a second floor landing, will house a restaurant.
One floor below the lobby will be the Ted Mann Theater, which will seat 280 people. The Shirley Temple Education Studio will also be in this area.
The second floor will contain part of the core collection of exhibits, which will change about once a year.
The third floor, with exhibition spaces that are not yet visible (they're behind the wall on the left), will contain more of the core collection as well as exhibits co-curated by filmmakers.
The David Geffen Theater, seen in this artist's rendering, will seat 1,000 people and is envisioned to hold movie premieres, screenings and events.
Currently, most of the seats have been installed in the theater, though some were removed for the special needs of the Jan. 13 Oscar nominations announcement, which took place in the building.
Projection facilities in the theater can accommodate everything from the newest digital technology to old nitrate prints.
An "events room" on the top floor currently sports a large plastic-wrapped Oscar statue.
The dome over the Dolby Family Terrace consists of 1,500 panes of glass from Austria, held in place by steel from the Czech Republic.
One item guaranteed to be on display in the museum: the ruby slippers from "The Wizard of Oz," which was released the same year the May Co. building opened.
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A tour of the building shows no exhibits but lots of almost-completed spaces
The Academy has announced that the opening date for its long-awaited, much-delayed, very expensive Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will be April 30, 2021. Before the lockdown hit, it invited the press to tour the building in early February, 2020, where we saw a lot of almost-finished spaces that will eventually contain exhibits relating to film history. Here's what it looked like, along with some plans and renderings of what it will look like when it's open.
