The 2023 Academy Awards broadcast will feature all 23 categories during the live television broadcast, an Academy spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.
This comes after this year’s show, which drew no little controversy, disapproval, and hand-wringing over the decision to cut eight categories from the Oscars: Original Score, Makeup & Hairstyling, Documentary Short, Film Editing, Production Design, animated short film, live action short film and sound: from the live broadcast aired on ABC.
The show still lasted 220 minutes.
Jimmy Kimmel, who has hosted a late-night ABC show since 2003, will emcee next year’s show, making him a three-time Oscar host and becoming one of nine people (including David Niven, Jerry Lewis, and Steve Martin). ) who have done the deed at least three times. One more links him to Whoopi Goldberg and Jack Lemmon, while a later one puts him alongside Johnny Carson. Kimmel has work to do before approaching Billy Crystal (nine times between 1990 and 2012), the 19-time Bob Hope.
The move to restore the excluded categories is sure to be met with approval within the industry and among those who watch the Academy broadcast because they really like the movies and/or like the awards portions of the broadcast at least as much as they watch the fashion. , jokes and live musical numbers.
This year’s show garnered miserable reviews for its editing of the aforementioned categories, as well as humor that seemed to mock the nominated movies for not being blockbusters fit for four-quadrant franchises and ridicule who might see them. That was even before Will Smith took the stage and slapped Chris Rock across the face in a gag, 30 minutes before Smith was to win his first Oscar, as was widely predicted, for his starring role in “King Richard.”
Ironically, in an awards season rife with discourse about the lack of populist blockbuster films competing for major categories (which all too often boiled down to “Spider-Man: No Way Home” not being nominated for Best Picture), four Of those awards, for original score, editing, production design and sound, they were among the six won by “Dune,” which grossed $400 million. Meanwhile, one of the technical awards broadcast live on the ABC-owned channel, for costume design, was – as expected – won by Walt Disney’s “Cruella.”
Still, there’s a good chance that this year’s top contenders, at least for Best Picture, will include such popular and boisterous titles as “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Everything, Everywhere All At Once,” “Elvis,” and ( in sight). -invisible) “Avatar: The Way of Water” along with more stereotypical (and generally less commercial, quality despite) awards season releases.
Whether that moves the needle in terms of ratings remains to be seen, but it can’t hurt.
The show’s declining viewership, from 40 million in 2014 to 17 million in 2022, is due as much to declining interest in what used to be mainstream studio fare like “West Side Story” or “King Richard” as it is to aspects social media highlights and a plethora of TV options. Of course, attempts to appeal to the disinterested risk backfiring and alienating those who still care and still watch.
