Oscars Creative Team Reveals Ceremony Theme and How Last Year’s Slap Will Be Addressed: ‘We’re Going to Acknowledge It and Move On’

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large On Sunday, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” appeared to be everything, everywhere, all at once. The film, of course, dominated the 95th Oscars with seven wins — including best picture. Virtually all the stars (except Stephanie Hsu — hey Daniels, can you spare one of your SIX Oscars and share one with her??) received wins, on what was truly a historic night. And an emotional one. As the opening clips of this week’s Variety Awards Circuit Podcast illustrates, family was on the minds of this year’s winners. Listen to our Mega Roundtable edition, in which Clayton Davis, Jenelle Riley, Jazz Tangcay and myself (that’s me, Michael Schneider) recount the show and dissect the winners — from Jimmy Kimmel’s excellent monologue to how every single category panned out:

There’s more where that came from!

Tom Cruise because the actor decided not to attend the ceremony, Oscars producers have admitted.Kimmel was the host of the 95th iteration of the Oscars on Sunday (March 12). The comic opened his the show with a monologue in which he poked fun at Avatar director James Cameron, last year’s Will Smith slapping incident and a dig at the poor box office performance of Babylon.The late-night TV host also couldn’t help but alert the audience to the fact that Cruise, whose Top Gun: Maverick received six nominations, was not in attendance.

@TheAcademy Awards. Pardon the helmet hair.

Oscars has revealed that a number of Will Smith jokes were cut from Jimmy Kimmel’s script.At last year’s ceremony, Smith slapped Chris Rock on stage for making a joke about the hair of his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Just moments later, Smith received the Best Actor award for his performance in King Richard.While giving his opening monologue at the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday (March 12), presenter Kimmel jokingly referenced the incident, saying: “If anyone in this theatre commits an act of violence at any point during this show, you will be awarded the Oscar for Best Actor and permitted to give a 19-minute-long speech.”However, there were additional jokes about the Smith-Rock slap that didn’t make Kimmel’s final script.Molly McNearney, an executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Kimmel’s wife, explained that the writing team decided to restrict the number of jokes about the incident, as they didn’t want to focus too much on the past.“We didn’t want to make this year all about last year,” McNearney told Variety.“I cannot tell you how many Will Smith jokes we had that then we got rid of.

Jimmy Kimmel’s wife, Molly McNearney, says her husband took it easy on Will Smith at the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday.Kimmel hosted Hollywood’s biggest night at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, one year after Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage in response to Rock making a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.McNearney, an executive producer for this year's Oscars, tells  why her husband didn’t go «harder» on Smith. «We didn't want to make this year all about last year,» McNearney explains. «I cannot tell you how many Will Smith jokes we had that then we got rid of. We think that only the best for that room made it.

Did you know that Jimmy Kimmel‘s wife Molly McNearney is one of the executive producers of his late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live? She’s now opening up about secrets from the 2023 Oscars telecast!

BreAnna Bell Viewership was up Sunday when an average of 18.7 million viewers tuned in to see “Everything Everywhere All at Once” earn best picture honors and dominate the 95th Oscars on ABC with seven wins. That’s according to early, time zone-adjusted ratings from Nielsen, which includes out-of-home viewing — but keep in mind, that number could change when the final nationals are in. The Oscars, which repped the return of host Jimmy Kimmel for the first time since 2018, was up 12% from last year’s ratings. And according to those time-zone-adjusted fast-national numbers from Nielsen, it bested the previous year’s 3.8 rating by 5% in key adults 18-49, earning a 4.0 in the demo.

The executive producers of the 2023 Oscars, Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner, gave an interview about the show and revealed some interesting information in THR.

It was a ceremony dominated by wins for “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Telecast producers Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner clearly had an idea of what was in store as they slotted the show’s categories to create as much natural drama as possible when, in fact, there turned out to be very few upsets. Still, with the pair booked for three more ceremonies, there was a lot that worked and a lot that didn’t.

“Hold My Hand” at this year’s Academy Awards, the pop superstar gave a surprise performance at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday.Although it was expected that Gaga would not be able to perform due to the demands of shooting the “Joker” sequel “Joker: Folie à Deux” with Joaquin Phoenix, apparently she couldn’t resist the chance to take the stage on Hollywood’s starriest night.But during his creative team press conference, just four days ago on Wednesday, Oscars executive producer and showrunner Glenn Weiss was singing a different tune.While making it clear that “we have a great relationship with Lady Gaga and her camp,” Weiss said, “She is in the middle of shooting a movie right now. Here, we are honoring the movie industry and what it takes to make a movie after a bunch of back and forth … It didn’t feel like she can get a performance to the caliber that we’re used to.

For the first time since the ceremony’s inception the 2023 Oscars featured a non-red carpet, with the Academy instead opting for a champagne colour. Organisers said the colour was chosen to “evoke the sunset” and that the decision had been approved by Academy boss Bill Kramer.The decision came from creative consultants Lisa Love, a longtime Vogue contributor, and Raul Avila, the creative director for the Met Gala in New York.

Will Smith, 54, cracked 94th Academy Awards presenter Chris Rock, 58, in the face after the comedian made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair.“Well, whatever I say about it, it’s going to have to be great, right?” he told The Hollywood Reporter last week. “Because so much has been said and there’s so much focus on it.

at the awards show after all.Just a few days after Oscars producer Glenn Weiss said that Gaga will not be performing at the ceremony, a source close to production confirmed to The Associated Press that she will actually be singing “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick.”The addition of Gaga means all of this year’s nominees for Best Original Song will be performing at the Academy Awards.Other nominees who will perform this year include Rihanna (“Lift Me Up”), Sofia Carson and Diane Warren (“Applause”), Stephanie Hsu, David Byrne and Son Lux (“This Is a Life”) and Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava (“Naatu Naatu”).It was reported earlier that the “Poker Face” singer had to turn down the offer to perform due to scheduling conflicts, Weiss confirmed Wednesday during the Oscars Creative Team press conference.“We invited all five nominees. We have a great relationship with Lady Gaga and her camp.

Lady Gaga will be performing Top Gun: Maverick song ‘Hold My Hand’ at tonight’s (March 12) 2023 Oscars after all.Last week, Gaga had yet to confirm whether she will perform her track – nominated for Best Original Song – at Sunday night’s ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Ovation Hollywood, Los Angeles.So far, four out of five of this year’s Best Original Song Oscar nominees have been confirmed to perform at the ceremony on March 12 including Rihanna (‘Lift Me Up’), Sofia Carson and Diane Warren (‘Applause’), Stephanie Hsu, David Byrne and Son Lux (‘This Is a Life’), and Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava (‘Naatu Naatu’).Oscars showrunner Glenn Weiss then seemingly confirmed that Gaga would not be performing, citing scheduling conflicts as the singer is currently filming Joker sequel, Joker: Folie À Deux.He said (via Variety): “We have a great relationship with Lady Gaga and her camp. She is in the middle of shooting a movie right now.

Will Smith shockingly smacked Chris Rock onstage at the Academy Awards after Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith, the comedian reignited the feud with his Netflix stand-up special “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage” last Saturday.“Will is embarrassed and hurt by what Chris said about him and his family in his Netflix special,” a Smith source told “Entertainment Tonight.”Embarrassed or not, last year’s Best Actor winner received a 10-year ban from the Oscars and other associated Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences events, so he cannot present the trophy for Best Actor in 2023 as tradition dictates. And a source told Page Six the violent dust-up won’t go unmentioned Sunday night.“We’re going to acknowledge it, and then we’re gonna move on,” executive producer Molly McNearney said in a press conference.

Will Smith slapped Chris Rock during the live broadcast last year.During the ceremony, a “crisis team” will be poised to intervene should anything unanticipated occur, Bill Kramer, the CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, told Time last month.“We have a whole crisis team, something we’ve never had before, and many plans in place,” he said. “We’ve run many scenarios.

Oscars 2023 have revealed how they’re planning on addressing last year’s incident with Will Smith slapping host Chris Rock.During the 2022 ceremony, Smith stormed the stage and hit Rock, after the comedian made a comment about Jada Pinkett-Smith, who was also in attendance.Following a number of apologies directed towards Rock and the organisers, Smith resigned from the Academy. He was later banned from attending all Academy events for 10 years.During a press conference earlier this week (March 8) executive producer for the Oscars 2023 Molly McNearney said (via Unilad): “We’re going to acknowledge it, and then we’re gonna move on.”“We don’t want to make this year about last year.

Lady Gaga is booked and busy at the moment. The Oscar nominee will not be performing at the 2023 edition of the Academy Awards, as she is currently in the middle of filming the highly anticipated Joker sequel, however fans expected the actress to have a moment to attend the ceremony and perform her acclaimed song from ‘Top Gun: Maverick.’“We have great relationships with Lady Gaga and her camp [but] she’s in the middle of shooting a movie right now, and here we are honoring the movie industry and what it takes to make a movie,” Oscars producer Glenn Weiss revealed on Wednesday at the Oscars Creative Team press conference.He went on to explain that they were excited to have the talented singer on stage, however nothing was confirmed.

Will Smith, 54, slapped 94th Academy Awards presenter Chris Rock, 58, after the comedian made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair — which Smith took as a jab at his 51-year-old wife’s struggle with alopecia. The tone-deaf comment inspired the actor to hustle up to the Los Angeles Dolby Theatre stage and smack Rock in the face.Typically, the previous year’s Best Actor winner comes back to present the award for Best Actress — but Smith, who won the Best Actor nod for his role in “King Richard,” won’t be in attendance.After the incident, Smith announced his resignation from the Academy, and it was ultimately decided that he would be banned from appearing at the Oscars ceremony for 10 years.“We’re going to acknowledge it, and then we’re gonna move on,” executive producer Molly McNearney said.