Tag: oscars

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Debbie Allen Dolly Parton Oscars Tom Cruise

Dolly Parton, Tom Cruise and Debbie Allen to receive honorary Oscars

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As CB noted the other day, I had finished writing up my thoughts on Lucasfilm studio head Kathleen Kennedy lobbying hard for her business daddy, Disney CEO Bob Iger, to be given an honorary Oscar, when the Academy went ahead and announced this year’s awardees (none of whom were named Bob Iger). And the four recipients who will be feted at the Governors Awards in November are: production designer Wynn Thomas, actor/director/choreographer Debbie Allen, singer/songwriter/actor Dolly Parton, and actor/producer/stuntman/cult member Tom Cruise. Guess years of handing out all those Christmas coconut cakes has now paid off for Tom! Here’s more on the honorees:

Academy president, Janet Yang, called them “four legendary individuals whose extraordinary careers and commitment to our film-making community continue to leave a lasting impact” in a statement.

The honorary Oscars are given “to honour extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences in any discipline, or for outstanding service to the Academy”.

It will mark Cruise’s first Oscar after the actor has been nominated on four occasions for performances in Born on the Fourth of July, Magnolia and Rain Man, and for producing best picture nominee Top Gun: Maverick. This year has seen him returning to the role of Ethan Hunt in the eighth Mission: Impossible film.

Parton will receive the Jean Hersholt humanitarian award to recognise how she has brought “credit to the industry by promoting human welfare and contributing to rectifying inequities”. Previous winners have included Richard Curtis, Michael J Fox, Tyler Perry and Angelina Jolie.

The singer and actor has previously been nominated for two Oscars for best original songs from 9 to 5 and Transamerica.

Allen has previously won five Emmys and been nominated for two Tony awards. She is known for starring in Fame and Grey’s Anatomy and also for directing and producing with credits including A Different World, Empire and Insecure. She has also worked as a choreographer for the Oscars ceremony on multiple occasions.

As production designer, Thomas’s credits include films such as Hidden Figures, Do the Right Thing, Da 5 Bloods, A Beautiful Mind and Malcom X. In a statement, Yang said that he has brought “some of the most enduring films to life through a visionary eye and mastery of his craft”.

[From The Guardian]

I can’t lie, when I first saw the list I wrote to CB right away and said, “Ugh, not Xenu Cruise!” Look, I understand how he qualifies; he’s been in the business for 40 years, he’s a prolific producer, he’s known for giving astute advice to colleagues, and he advocates for people going to the theater to see movies. These are all great qualities that have made for a long, fruitful career. I just can’t look past the Scientology of it all. To me, it undercuts all of his good works, as I’ve commented here before. (And ok yes, I also hold a grudge against him for the way he treated Nicole Kidman during their divorce.)

But I have no reservations whatsoever in giving my full-throated congratulations to Wynn Thomas, Debbie Allen, and Dolly Parton! And yes, The Guardian wrote that correctly, Dolly has been nominated for Best Original Song only twice, and never won. “Travelin’ Thru,” the song she wrote for Transamerica, is a gorgeous song that I still listen to regularly. It lost to “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” which is the perfect illustration of apples and oranges. Those songs cannot be compared! And to tie everything together, guess what “9 to 5” lost to? “Fame,” from the film starring Debbie Allen.

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Bob Iger Disney Kathleen Kennedy Oscars Star Wars

Kathleen Kennedy lobbied for Disney boss Bob Iger to get an honorary Oscar

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Kathleen Kennedy is a powerhouse movie producer. She’s been nominated for an Oscar eight times in the Best Picture category, and five of those were for films helmed by her longtime collaborator Steven Spielberg. Then in 2012, Kennedy made a pivot from producing to being the president of Lucasfilm, after George Lucas sold his studio to Disney for $4 billion. So basically, any Star Wars related content you’ve seen over the last 13 years, that project was greenlit by Kennedy. There have been hits (Andor) and misses (Solo), as well as some ideas that were never really given a fair shot (The Acolyte). Has she been perfect? Definitely no. Has every move she made been picked apart thanks to some good old fashioned misogyny? Definitely yes. So the trades started reporting in February that Kennedy was on her way out as head of Lucasfilm when her contract ends this year. Now this curious item: “sources” are saying that Kennedy is lobbying hard for Bob Iger to get an honorary Oscar this year. Her Disney business daddy. Oh, and Disney also owns ABC, the network that airs the Oscars and is renegotiating a deal to keep those rights past 2028. Hmmm…

Kathleen Kennedy, president of “Star Wars” creator Lucasfilm, certainly knows how to use the Force — specifically within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The producer-executive has been ardently lobbying members of the group to obtain an Honorary Oscar for her boss, Disney chief Bob Iger, four insiders with knowledge of the matter told Variety.

Kennedy has reached out to select players at the board level inside AMPAS, encouraging them to recommend one of the annual honors go to Iger — the man who secured Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm for Disney’s war chest of intellectual property, selling billions of dollars’ worth of movie tickets in the process. All branches of the Academy have been active in recent weeks, meeting about new membership matters, and Kennedy has used the opportunity to schmooze on Iger’s behalf.

While few in the industry would question Iger’s worthiness of the prize, some board members have been squeamish over the optics, sources said. Disney, of course, owns the Oscars’ longtime broadcast partner, ABC. Some of the members pitched feel that’s a conflict of interest.

Moreover, others noted, the Academy happens to be in the middle of negotiations with the network to renew its licensing agreement beyond 2028 (which will mark the 100th Academy Awards ceremony). Iger had no knowledge of Kennedy’s outreach and did not request she pursue the honor, according to two people familiar with the process. It is considered routine for Academy members to lobby on behalf of honorary Oscar candidates, an AMPAS insider said, though some inside the organization are curious about Kennedy’s motives.

Representatives for Kennedy and Iger had no comment. An AMPAS spokesperson declined to comment as well.

[From Variety]

“Iger had no knowledge of Kennedy’s outreach and did not request she pursue the honor … It is considered routine for Academy members to lobby on behalf of honorary Oscar candidates…” Have I become completely jaded, or did anyone else upon reading that part, imagine a hapless third executive assistant taking down Iger’s dictation to leak those exact words to Variety? Regardless, there are undeniably major conflicts of interest at issue here, and I can’t figure out what the larger play is. Kennedy — who herself already has the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy — is possibly stepping down by the end of this year. Bob Iger is supposedly re-retiring as Disney CEO in 2026, but that date is already pushed back from the originally planned 2023 exit. And if ABC, part of The Mouse’s kingdom, wants to secure Oscar airing rights, how does lobbying hard for the Academy to give Iger an award help move things along? Why is it so crucial that Iger is bestowed an honorary Oscar this year? Are his $15 million salary plus $27 million yearly bonuses not enough? I have no answers! Just the commentary that when a house becomes so all powerful — Disney owns Lucasfilm and Marvel and Pixar and ABC — problems are bound to arise. Just ask the royal family.

Note by CB: The honorary Oscars were announced after Kismet wrote this story and Bob Iger was unsurprisingly not included.

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awards Oscars

The Academy requires Oscar voters to actually watch the nominated movies now

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The Oscars have been on a tear rolling out changes. In February 2024, they announced a new category for Best Casting Director, which will go into effect for the 2026 show. Then earlier this month, the Academy revealed another new category, Best Stunt Design, which won’t go live until 2028, the 100th ceremony. Both of those categories have had long, passionate campaigns behind them. I feel like it’s all coming together in such a rush now as Oscar gears up for its centennial festivities. But then this week, the Academy’s Board of Governors passed a set of radical changes to the voting rules that I truly was not expecting. Starting this year, members will actually have to watch the nominated movies, in order to cast their votes. I know, it’s shocking! Guess the august Hollywood club of clubs finally felt embarrassed by anonymous voters annually broadcasting how few movies they’d managed to see that year.

In a significant change to its pre-voting standards, the Academy will now require members to “watch all nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote in the final round for the Oscars,” according to a press release.

Tightening its rules, the Academy previously did not require voters in all branches to have seen all films ahead of voting, though some viewing standards applied to specific categories such as the Documentary and Short brackets.

When reached for comment, an Academy representative tells Entertainment Weekly in a statement that proof of views are currently tracked on Academy Screening Room, an internal service where voting members can screen titles.

“There is also a ‘seen elsewhere’ form that members will need to submit before finals voting,” the statement continues. “If you have not viewed a title, the award category will be inaccessible (greyed). For the specialty categories, we will still require viewing in prelims and noms as usual. For this year, we will now require viewing in finals voting for all categories and all voting members.”

Many Academy members have long been open about not having seen multiple films heading into the final round of voting — including several voters who spoke with EW anonymously ahead of the 2025 ceremony.

“I’m bummed becauseI haven’t seen The Substance or I’m Still Here yet. The first Dune, I couldn’t get through; I’m not rushing for another three hours of Dune. There’s still time to re-evaluate, but I really struggled,” one director told us, while a casting director added: “I haven’t seen The Brutalist yet. I’m planning to see it, and from what little I saw [already], it’s similar to The Pianist, and [Adrien Brody] already got his Oscar for that. So, maybe someone else deserves a chance [for Best Actor].”

Other changes to the Academy’s rules and eligibility requirements include category rules for the new Achievement in Casting category.

The new category will proceed with a “preliminary round of voting to determine a shortlist of 10 films, and prior to nominations voting, Casting Directors Branch members will be invited to view a ‘bake-off’ presentation of the shortlisted achievements, including a Q&A with the designated nominees.”

Another notable alteration includes an indication that generative AI used in the making of any film will “neither help nor harm” the chances of achieving a nomination, though “each branch will judge the achievement, taking into account the degree to which a human was at the heart of the creative authorship when choosing which movie to award.”

[From Entertainment Weekly]

This seems like a no brainer to me! Especially given that all the viewing and voting is run through a digital system, the Academy Screening Room. I hope there’s also a tracker ensuring that the film is watched all the way through in order to grant access to voting in a category. The nerd in me is excited to see the impact this change will have. If a huge swath of the voting body can’t fulfill the viewing requirement — which I’m sure will happen — then dedicated, underdog voters will get to play a pivotal role. This has the potential to really shake up the awards, and I’m here for the revolution! (Even if I’m completely flummoxed by this “bake-off” oddity for the casting directors; are they baking British confections, getting high, or both? And what does it have to do with the search and selection of actors?!) Overall, though, a much-needed step in the right direction. Next up: figuring out how to make voters realize there are ways to fact check if someone has already won an Oscar or not.

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conan o'brien Oscars

Conan O’Brien announced to return as host of the Oscars for 2026

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It is famously difficult to find someone to host the Oscars. Last year, a ton of people said no to hosting it, including 2024 host Jimmy Kimmel, John Mulaney, Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, and Ryan Reynolds. Conan O’Brien was far from the first person asked, but I think he ended up being the best possible choice. I think Conan did a great job hosting this year’s Academy Awards. From what I’ve seen online, most people seem to agree with me. He was funny without being offensive and overall, I enjoyed his jokes and bits. My only complaint is how long the ceremony was, but they’re always too long. The producers over at Disney/ABC must have really liked Conan’s hosting style, too, because he’s already been tapped to host the Oscars again in 2026.

Conan O’Brien is returning to the Oscars stage in 2026. The late-night host and comedian will preside over the 98th Academy Awards, set for March 15, the film academy’s leadership said Monday.

“The only reason I’m hosting the Oscars next year is that I want to hear Adrien Brody finish his speech,” O’Brien said in a statement.

This year was O’Brien’s first time leading the show, which attracted its biggest broadcast audience in five years despite the winning movie, “Anora,” being relatively small.

An estimated 19.7 million viewers watched the 97th Academy Awards ceremony earlier this month, according to broadcaster ABC, with a big lift among people aged 18 to 49, driven by mobile and laptop watches from younger viewers. It was also the most watched prime-time entertainment show of 2025.

“Conan’s unique comedic style perfectly captured the moment, and I’m excited to have his talents back onstage next year to helm another indelible performance,” said Craig Erwich, the president of Disney Television Group, in a statement.

Next year O’Brien will also be surrounded by a familiar team, with Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan returning as executive producers of the show and Jeff Ross and Mike Sweeney as producers. Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang said in a joint statement that it’s an honor to be working again with the group behind this year’s broadcast.

“This year, they produced a hugely entertaining and visually stunning show that celebrated our nominees and the global film community in the most beautiful and impactful way,” Kramer and Yang said. “Conan was the perfect host — skillfully guiding us through the evening with humor, warmth and reverence.”

The show also succeeded in social media metrics, outperforming both the Grammy Awards and the Super Bowl, according to Oscars organizers. This was the first time that the show was streamed live simultaneously on Hulu, which was not without its glitches.

The timing of the announcement of next year’s hosting and producing teams — less than a month after this year’s Oscars — is unusually early for the film academy and ABC.

[From HuffPo]

“The only reason I’m hosting the Oscars next year is that I want to hear Adrien Brody finish his speech.” LMAO. Ain’t nobody got time for that. That’s exactly why everyone loves Conan, though. He’s got such great relationships with everyone. It probably makes it much easier to come up with jokes without being too controversial. I’m happy with this news. I don’t know why it took so long to get Conan to host them in the first place when he’s done a good job with the Emmys before. I look forward to what jokes and shenanigans he’ll come up with next year. You just know he and his team are already workshopping potential jokes for Ariana, Cynthia, and Wicked 2: For Good.

Photos credit: Avalon.red and via Instagram

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Jeff Goldblum Oscars

Jeff Goldblum on being caught checking out his own red carpet pics: I’m busted

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Last year, Jeff Goldblum made headlines when he was caught dancing on the JumboTron at the Super Bowl. He basically proved that he’s just like the rest of us, happy to ham it up for the cameras when the situation calls for it. Well, oops he did it again! Last week, Jeff went viral once more. This time, it was at the Oscars. Someone snapped a picture of Jeff checking out his own red carpet pictures as his wife, Emilie Livingston, looked on. The picture is very meta, lol. Naturally, someone from Entertainment Tonight asked Jeff about it as he was leaving the theatre after the awards were over. His response? “I’m busted!”

Jeff Goldblum is viral and he knows it. The beloved actor was the talk of the net during this year’s Oscars presentation, as, while Ben Stiller was busy tweeting from beneath the stage, Goldblum was spotted checking himself out in the audience.

Several photos taken of Goldblum in the audience showed him scrolling through his own red carpet photos, along with his wife’s closeups and even his Wicked co-star Ariana Grande’s. Naturally, his admiration quickly went viral online.

“this photo of jeff goldblum looking at his own red carpet pic at the oscars is sending me,” one person wrote on X, while another joked, “i was also checking out jeff goldblum’s red carpet pics while watching the oscars but no one seems to care about that.”

Entertainment Tonight caught up with the Jurassic Park star on his way out, bringing his viral moment to his attention when the reporter said, “Jeff, they caught you tonight.”

“Oh my gosh, look at that—let me see,” he said, taking off his glasses for a better look at the reporter’s phone’s screen as his wife, Emilie Livingston, explained, “No, in fact, we got to our seats an hour before, so what do you do when you try to kill time?”

“Oh, that’s funny,” Goldblum interjected. “Well, I’m busted—that’s it.”

“Everybody does it,” Livingston defended, as the interviewer agreed that he had been outside doing the same thing.

“Where are more pictures of me? That’s my question,” Goldblum added.

Fans further marveled over Goldblum’s unflappable attitude, with one replying to ET’s video, “Nothing, absolutely nothing can baffle Jeff Goldblum.”

[From Parade]

LMAO. I mean, no lies detected anywhere here. First, everyone checks out pictures of themselves for one reason or another. I totally do it. I still sometimes look at a picture that I posted of myself from my birthday last month just to make sure I don’t regret it. Second, what else are you supposed to do when you’re super early to a big event that’s all over social media? Again, I’d totally check out what the Internet was saying about my co-stars and me. Jeff, still proving that he’s just like us. Third, why aren’t there more pictures of Jeff? That man is wearing a pretty awesome Prada suit ensemble and there should have been more attention paid to it. Justice for Jeff’s fashion! Finally, and this is just an aside, but Mr. Rosie and I watched Wicked again this weekend, this time with the kids, and I’m re-blown away at how great it was. I was a skeptic when the trailer came out last year, but I publicly repent. It’s just so freaking good.

this photo of jeff goldblum looking at his own red carpet pic at the oscars is sending me pic.twitter.com/jsrvKyxQZG

— ana ౨ৎ (@raindropsdeluxe) March 3, 2025

Jeff Goldblum reacts to getting caught looking at his own red carpet photos. ????

(????: Carlos Barria/Reuters) pic.twitter.com/1ra1oC7lxE

— Entertainment Tonight (@etnow) March 3, 2025

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conan o'brien Oscars

Surprise, the 2025 Oscars telecast had slightly higher viewership than 2024

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I will never understand how and why the Academy Awards decide, every single year, to add so many “filler” segments, tributes and extra musical performances into an already bloated awards show. At my big age, I’m tired of this annual conversation when anyone with half a brain would be capable of trimming the Oscars telecast down to a tight two-and-a-half hours. Well, I was prepared for a lot of post-Oscars discourse about a dwindling audience and awards given to a bunch of movies most people have never seen. But something weird has happened… the ratings news is a mixed bag. While the actual telecast on ABC reflected a dip in viewership numbers from last year, this was the first year that Hulu live-streamed the Oscars, so now the streaming numbers have been added and… this year was more-watched than last year?

Here’s a plot twist: After initial numbers showed the 2025 edition of the Oscars running behind last year’s TV audience, final figures have moved the show ahead of the 2024 telecast — and to a five-year high in several measures.

Sunday’s telecast, hosted by Conan O’Brien, averaged 19.69 million viewers on ABC and Hulu, according to Nielsen’s final same-day ratings (which includes the streaming audience on Hulu). The show marked the first time the Academy Awards were live streamed, though Hulu suffered a number of technical glitches during the evening, including cutting off the final two awards of the night for some users.

The final figure is a sizable adjustment up from the initially reported 18.07 million viewers, and it’s attributable largely to viewing on digital devices — i.e., mobile phones and tablets — that isn’t captured in Nielsen’s fast national reporting. The 19.69 million viewers is about 200,000 more than the 19.49 million for the 2024 Oscars and is the largest audience in five years. The 2020 Oscars, the final awards of the pre-pandemic era, drew 23.64 million viewers.

Sunday’s telecast also posted gains among adults 18-49 and adults 18-34, hitting post-pandemic highs in both demographics. The show posted a 4.54 rating (equivalent to about 6.08 million people) among adults 18-49, up 19 percent from 3.82 a year ago. Among adults 18-34, the Oscars scored a 3.9 rating (equivalent to about 2.8 million viewers in that age range), a 28 percent improvement year to year.

As is usually the case, the Oscars is the most watched awards show of the season to date, beating out the 15.4 million viewers for the Grammys a month ago. It also topped the Grammys’ 3.91 rating among adults 18-49. The telecast is also the largest primetime entertainment show (i.e., excluding sports) on broadcast TV in 2024-25, again taking the lead from the Grammys.

[From THR]

Okay… that was not what I was expecting. I thought Conan O’Brien was going to be thrown under the bus and that the viewership numbers would be lower than low. Guess this is what happens when an independent film about a stripper marrying a Russian oligarch’s son wins Best Picture! The other plus for this year’s ceremony was that many of the races really were down to the wire. It was a “surprise” that Mikey Madison beat Demi Moore, and it was a surprise that Adrien Brody beat Timothee Chalamet. Usually, the Oscars feel more inevitable, and we already know who will win in the biggest races. Now, all that being said… the telecast needs to be shorter. There is no reason for it to start at 7 pm EST and end at 11 pm. There was no reason for that fakakta James Bond mess. I’m still mad about that.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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Hulu Oscars

Hulu’s Oscar live stream glitched multiple times and cut off right before Best Actress

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Overall, I liked this year’s Oscars ceremony. It went on for way too long, but at least there weren’t any major production hiccups. All of the correct award recipients were announced and the only odd moment of the evening was the Best Original Song winners trying to start a singalong.

Unfortunately, the same problem-free production can’t be said about the viewing side. For the first time ever, the Academy Awards aired live on Hulu and any other streaming service that carried ABC. While the show aired without issue on most of those platforms, Hulu completely sh-t the bed. Their live steam glitched multiple times, including during the opening performance by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo and while Conan O’Brien was doing his opening monologue. Those early glitches reportedly lasted for 40 minutes before they were fixed. Then, just as Emma Stone was about to announce this year’s Best Actress winner, Hulu’s live feed abruptly ended. This caused viewers to not only miss that award, but also the winner of Best Picture.

Hulu’s big night at the 2025 Oscars was cut short on Sunday evening for many viewers when the streamer’s red carpet coverage of Hollywood’s biggest night was followed by glitches in the stream of the broadcast of the ceremony, leaving its paying customers in the dark for more than two hours as the Academy Awards took place in Los Angeles — and then at the ceremony’s end, when Hulu’s event cut off early.

For the first time, the Academy Awards ceremony was streamed live on Hulu. Since the ceremony is broadcast on ABC, cord-cutters could watch it live on any live TV streaming service that carries ABC, including Hulu Live TV, Sling, Fubo and DirecTV Stream. Yet many Hulu subscribers couldn’t watch all of the Oscars action unfold as the beginning of this year’s ceremony was beset with major interruptions, causing viewers to miss out on Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s live Wicked performances and Conan O’Brien’s opening monologue.

Hulu was able to fix that glitch, which a representative told The Hollywood Reporter around 6:15 p.m. PT — more than two hours into the Oscars ceremony — was the result of the technician issue that at that point had been resolved; all impacted Hulu users were able to log in at that point, the rep stated. The rep cited a technical matter with Hulu’s login system as the cause of the widespread issue.

However, that was not the end of Hulu’s live stream meltdown on Sunday. The event cut off early for some subscription video-on-demand users, who then missed the announcement of the best actress and best picture winners. What they got was an onscreen message from Hulu thanking viewers for watching the program and indicating that it had ended.

During the glitches at the top of the show, annoyed and perplexed Hulu subscribers were quick to take to X to complain about the matter. One user pointed out that Hulu is prone to having issues when it comes to live events streaming on the platform.

“Reminder Hulu servers can’t handle live events,” X user @DogeCoinAud wrote in response to Hulu’s post about best actor nominee Sebastian Stan, which read, “Reminder that this always was and forever will be a Sebastain STAN account,” with the actor’s name misspelled.

The company was quick to catch on to the early hiccups and responded on social media to the technical issues. Around 4:45 p.m. PT, Disney Help’s account posted on X that users having trouble streaming the Oscars broadcast should restart their Hulu or other Hulu application or check for app updates.

“@DisneyPlusHelp Thank you for reaching out! The 97th Oscars will be broadcast live on ABC-TV and are streaming on Hulu starting at 7 p.m. ET / 3 p.m. PT. If you are having trouble accessing it, try restarting your app or checking for updates. Let us know if you need further assistance!@DisneyPlusHelp Thank you for reaching out!”

THR has learned that the early end of Hulu’s Oscars stream resulted from a scheduling system issue, according to a source familiar with the matter.

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

It sounds like when Hulu’s programmers scheduled the broadcast to stream live, they assumed that it would end on time, and only left a 15 minute buffer in case it ran over. Ha, rookie mistake! Even with the (thankfully) earlier start time, you always assume that an awards show is going to go way over. This really sucked for everyone who was watching the Hulu stream, especially for those who were looking forward to Erivo and Grande’s wonderful opening performance or were hosting Oscar parties and invested in the outcomes of each race. Poor Kismet’s Hulu stream cut out, so she missed the ending of the show, too. I watched it on YouTube TV, and if this had happened to me, I would have been so mad.

If these big streaming services are going to continue to raise their rates, the least they can do is figure their sh-t out and provide the service people are paying for. For example, Tubi, which is free, streamed the Super Bowl with only mild buffering issues. Anyway, it’s kind of funny that Hulu had so many issues during a movie awards show just after Anora director Sean Baker gave a “battle cry” about how streaming services are killing the movie-going experience. They could not have timed it better if they tried.

Photos credit: Avalon.red