LOS ANGELES (AFP) – The Oscars can have a bunch for the primary time since 2018, broadcaster ABC stated on Tuesday (Jan 11), after tv rankings for movie’s greatest evening have plummeted in recent times.
The 94th Academy Awards, scheduled for March 27, will see Tinseltown’s most vital prize-giving occasion return to its conventional Dolby Theatre venue in Hollywood.
Final yr’s unorthodox version, held at a Los Angeles prepare station with no host, was watched by simply over 10 million viewers – a 56 per cent decline from 2020, which was already a document low.
“You heard it right here first, I can verify that this yr’s Oscars can have a bunch,” Craig Erwich, president of ABC Leisure and Hulu Originals, instructed a digital panel dialogue hosted by the Tv Critics Affiliation.
Erwich declined to provide any additional particulars, together with whether or not Jimmy Kimmel – host of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Dwell! and the final two hosted Oscars in 2017 and 2018 – will return.
“It may be me,” he quipped.
In 2019, comic Kevin Hart pulled out of internet hosting the Academy Awards after homophobic tweets he made a number of years earlier reemerged.
He was not changed, and whereas that yr’s hostless format drew reward and was even emulated by different awards exhibits such because the Emmys, subsequent Oscar ceremonies have been criticised for missing focus and humour.
Additionally on Tuesday, the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences introduced that veteran Glenn Weiss will direct the Oscars for a seventh consecutive yr.
Few particulars have been confirmed for the present, which might be produced by Will Packer and have been postponed for a second consecutive yr.
The delay, reportedly to keep away from clashing with February’s Winter Olympics and the Tremendous Bowl in Los Angeles, was introduced months earlier than the Omicron variant compelled a number of Hollywood exhibits to scrap in-person occasions this winter.
