Oscars to have no host this year

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The Academy Awards, this year will adapt a new format, with producers set to delegate the role of emcee to a selection of A-listers who will introduce various segments.

According to Variety, an insider revealed that the broadcast will rely heavily on music thanks to the success of films such as A Star is Born.

Reports have now emerged in the Hollywood trade press that the telecast team have resigned themselves to the lack of a replacement and sought instead to secure the services of countless stars to act as awards presenters.

Top of the producers Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss’s wish list for the 24 February show is said to be the cast of the Avengers franchise, ahead of the release two months later of the “final” instalment, Endgame.

Earlier, Kevin Hart stepped down from hosting the ceremony after some old homophobic tweets resurfaced online.

Hart – an actor and comedian particularly popular with exactly the demographic the Oscars were keen to court – was reportedly told to apologise anew for homophobic remarks he had made in the past or quit his post.

Such a situation is not entirely without precedent: in 1989, producer Allan Carr and director Jeff Margolis oversaw a show that replaced the opening monologue with a now-infamous 11-minute musical number involving a duet between the actor Rob Lowe and an unknown actor, Eileen Bowman, dressed as Snow White.

Multiple hosts have also been sighted through the years, with Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon, Rosalind Russell and Donald Duck sharing the billing in 1958, Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Charlton Heston and Rock Hudson in 1973 and Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn and Paul Hogan in 1987.

 

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