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EXCLUSIVE: Now that 96th Oscar Show producers Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan are officially on board to repeat for the 97th Annual Academy Awards after winning an Emmy in September for their efforts, the search for an Oscar host(s) continues with the Academy reaching out to stars, and even as I noted in my October 14th column that according to informed sources the plan could be to have multiple teams sharing the load. After four-time host Jimmy Kimmel and John Mulaney reportedly turned down the gig, high among those on Oscar’s wish list was to pair Deadpool & Wolverine stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, either as sole hosts or anchoring just part of the ceremony. It makes perfect sense as I wrote then:
“The pair are the title stars of Deadpool & Wolverine, a summertime smash and that’s the No. 2 movie of 2024 globally with $1.33 billion worldwide, just behind Inside Out ($1.69 billion). The threequel comes from Disney, which also owns ABC, the network airing the 97th Annual Academy Awards on March 2. Jackman hosted the universally praised 2009 show produced by Bill Condon and Larry Mark, and Reynolds is the kind of personality who seems tailor-made for the gig. It is a no-brainer. Plus, they successfully co-hosted ex-Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel‘s ABC talk show one night this summer when Kimmel was on vacation.”
In a year where there is no Barbenheimer to excite the masses, having Deadpool and Wolverine on stage could be a ratings magnet to drive audience interest in tuning in to offset the low wattage of the likely Best Picture nominees. So is this even a possibility? In a taping with Reynolds for an upcoming episode of my Deadline video series, The Actor’s Side I showed Reynolds the headlines Deadline has written about him recently and even the one about buzz on their potentially being in the mix this year as hosts. I asked him directly if hosting the Oscars would be on his dance card this time around, and what it might look like.
“I love how you skipped past the other headline: ‘Giant Bag Of Blood Ryan Reynolds Fails Again,” he joked before answering the question. “The Oscars, yes. This is something I really genuinely would love to do with Hugh. Yeah, we hosted Kimmel together, but we also had just kind of hit, ‘f**k it’ at that point, we were at the end of a long tour. We traveled in every country all over the world, and enjoyed every second of it. And we go to Kimmel, we didn’t even remember the schedule, (as it was) so intense on the tour like that. And so we got to Kimmel, and we just got loose. And it was, I thought, kind of an interesting way to host it. It feels like those old AFI dinners where everybody would get up there, they go from decades and decades ago all the way up to present day. And they look like what you sort of hope the Oscars could feel like, right? A bit of a roast, a bit of a loose kind of enjoyable experience. And, you know it’s getting harder and harder out there, I think, for telecasts like that to kind of exist, it’s tricky. So, one day I’d love to do that, I don’t know about this year, but one day, yeah.”
So then I pressed him a little further and he gave reasons why any kind of hosting gig on the Oscars likely won’t be on his plate this year.
“A lot of things would have to happen that are kind of amazing. Part of it is that these movies like Deadpool & Wolverine, they consume my life, and I have four kids, and I want to be there. I want to see them, and they want to see me, and I want to walk into school with them, and I want to be able to be there present,” he said. “And if I were to host something like (the Oscars) as someone who, you know, kind of feels a bit of intense sort of anxiety, I wouldn’t be present mentally. I would be kind of constantly writing in my head, or projecting potentially tragic outcomes on the live stage.”
The 97th Annual Academy Awards, with or without Ryan Reynolds, airs Sunday March 2, 2025 on ABC.
Stay tuned for more updates on the hosting situation.
