The Oscars are going to begin a whopping 30 minutes earlier, still last for an eternity

You should still keep some coffee handy.
 By 
Marcus Gilmer
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The interminable self-congratulatory awards slog that is the Oscars is trying to do right by you, the viewer, and has decided to shift its mind-numbing, never-ending extravaganza of dresses and "SPEECHABLE MOMENTS" back a whole half-hour earlier.

Despite the drama in 2017 with wrong envelopes and the wrong name announced and all that fun stuff, the show was still very, very, very long.

So, in an effort to throw us all a bone, the Oscars announced Monday morning that they are going to kick-off at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT for the March 4, 2018 edition of the awards show on ABC, meaning the awards show should wrap up sometime around 12:30 a.m. on March 5, 2018 for viewers on the East Coast.

Thank you for your altruism, Oscars!

Via Giphy

This means the ABC red carpet pre-show will start at 6:30 p.m. ET and the total network run-time for the awards show will run to close to six hours, as the Oscars get closer to being an insane all-day affair like the Super Bowl.

Anyway.

There's also a new teaser for the Jimmy Kimmel-hosted affair that includes clips from movies that will probably get some Oscar love, like Dunkirk and Get Out, some that absolutely shouldn't like Transformers and Daddy's Home 2, and some that probably won't but absolutely should like Wonder Woman and Fate of the Furious (aka Fast & Furious 8).

You've got three months to prepare so hop to it.

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Marcus Gilmer

Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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