Hugh Jackman Will Let Someone Else Try Hosting The Oscars

It had been rumoured for weeks but Hugh Jackman made it official today; he will not be repeating his turn as Oscar’s host.

A Jackman sequel had been much hoped for by the Oscar community. After two decades of firing every weapon imaginable at TV audiences in hopes of stemming the ratings slide, Jackman was the first thing that worked, giving last year’s show a minor uptick — which is far better than a major downtick. After many attempts to young the show up (Chris Rock, Jon Stewart) to get wacky (Whoopi, Ellen) or to play down the middle comic shtick (Billy Crystal, Steve Martin) it turned out that what audiences wanted was a big-toothed song and dance man to bring in some champagne-like class.

The Academy’s announcement of a couple weeks back that they would be replace Bill Condon, the show’s not-available this year director, with Adam Shankman, another musical veteran, signalled an intent to stay the course. But without Jackman, the hunt will be on for another for of that rare, dying breed of Hollywood good-looking, above-the-fray, theatre-y leading men.

The spotlight now turns to Neil Patrick Harris who has won hosannas as host of the Emmys and Tony awards and is the only obvious choice to fill Jackman’s particular shoes. But will the king of all awards shows really be willing to take Emmy’s hand-me-downs? They’ve done it before with Ellen, but twice starts to get embarrassing. Particularly when your leading competition, The Globes, has just booked the most buzzworthy host of any show in years — Ricky Gervais.

Throughout the years, Hollywood has whispered about the Oscar curse which seems to strike down many a winner’s career after they take home the trophy. But shouldn’t we wonder whether the curse applies to Oscar itself?