Oscar show promises fun with new producers at the helm

Expect these no-shows at the Oscars this year.

Batman for best picture.

Clint Eastwood going after his first acting win as a crusty coot in Gran Torino, probably his last on-screen role.

Heath Ledger, the late Aussie actor who gave the year's most raved-about performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, accepting a supporting trophy for what is the safest bet of the night.

On a more positive note, however, there also won't be the same old opening monologue, endless movie clips, an abundance of canned segments, silly prefab presenter banter and embarrassing interruptions of impassioned speeches.

At least that's the plan, say filmmakers Bill Condon, 53, and Laurence Mark, 59, the unflappably enthusiastic first-time producers of the 81st edition of the annual test of viewer endurance known as the Academy Awards. The show airs Feb. 22 on ABC.

When it comes to entertaining the masses, it doesn't really matter what is on the ballot, Mark insists. His and Condon's primary objective is "to celebrate all the movies of 2008." Blockbusters, sleepers, art-house fare, you name it. Attention will be paid to movie history, too, "but no clips of Gone With the Wind."

In other words, these fellows aren't losing sleep over how the voters went for the low-profile Holocaust-themed drama The Reader over superhero sensation The Dark Knight in the top contest.

"We have enough great material to attract a crowd," Condon says. "It's the academy's job to honor the best movies, not what will provide the highest ratings. We both feel they show great integrity in what they do."

"They did provide us with lots of movie stars," Mark quickly adds. That would include Brad Pitt of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Angelina Jolie of Changeling, Hollywood's very own prom king and queen, who each are competing for acting honors.

Nearly impossible task

Condon also suggests there are plenty of horse races among the 24 categories, especially the best-actor and supporting-actress contests, even if the crowd-pleasing Slumdog Millionaire has been best-picture top dog at nearly every other awards show. "And The Dark Knight is still up for eight awards," he says.

Even better: The best-song category, a prime time for bathroom breaks thanks to often ill-conceived staging, has only three nominees: Peter Gabriel's WALL·E ditty and two Bollywood-infused numbers from Slumdog Millionaire.

Not that they expect it all to be a breeze. Says Condon, who wrote and directed 2006's Dreamgirls with Mark as producer: "This makes doing a movie musical look easy. It is very intense."

Barack Obama might have them beat when it comes to tough new jobs. But the daunting chore faced by these Hollywood vets may run a close second as they attempt to re-establish the Academy Awards as an event that's worth watching. To do so, they must convince an increasingly awards-show-adverse public (the Golden Globes just suffered its second-lowest ratings since 1995) that a bloated and often clumsy pageant of self-promotion can be must-see, instead of must-flee, TV.

Academy president Sid Ganis has his reasons why he recruited Condon and Mark to tackle an assignment that often is a logistical nightmare for even the most stalwart showmen. As he told Variety: "Both of them are busy, working filmmakers, both are smart, tasteful, elegant — and they're fun."

But why did this savvy duo decide to take on what seems an impossible challenge? "Sid said he was open to new ideas," Mark says, "and I thought, 'Wow, we could shake things up and be free to do so.' Even if we can't guarantee everything will work."

Besides, these longtime Oscar buffs just couldn't say no. "I get a big budget to do a show for one night," Condon says, "It's a lot of fun."

Says Marks: "We are flying by the seat of our pants. I get a kick out of that. There is no possible way we can plan for everything that happens."

Besides, the pair can't do much worse than last year's effort put on by predecessor Gil Cates, when the dark crime yarn No Country for Old Men took best picture amid a slew of low-grossing, downbeat titles. The ratings plunged to 32 million viewers, a loss of nearly 8 million from the year before and the least-watched ceremony ever.

The gold standard for Condon was 1968, when the musical Oliver! won best picture and Broadway's Gower Champion produced and directed.

"It was the year of 'Hello, gorgeous,' " Mark says, referring to how Barbra Streisand memorably greeted her statuette when the Funny Girl star tied with Katharine Hepburn for best actress.

"It was held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion," Condon recalls. "It was very sleek and midcentury modern. There was a real theatrical imagination behind the show. Elegant, not all glitzed up."

Picking up on that theme, the producers hope their version is "appropriate and elegant," especially at a time of economic hardships and a foggy future. "It is time to tap your troubles away, and we hope this will do that," Mark says.

'Mistakes are our friends'

With slightly less than a month to go, there is a lot of planning and preparation ahead. But Condon and Mark already have a blueprint, one that involves tossing aside tradition in favor of surprise.

"The only thing you must do is give all the awards out live onstage," Mark says. "You have to respect that. But there are many ways to do that, mind you." What is in the works:

•The host from Oz. The producers were out to make a statement when they selected X-Men star Hugh Jackman after a string of comedians such as Jon Stewart and Ellen DeGeneres.

Yes, Wolverine has animal magnetism galore. But the Australian actor, who previously handled the Tony Awards with aplomb, also has some considerable musical chops after starring in The Boy From Oz and Oklahoma! on stage.

"He can sing, dance and looks great in a tuxedo," Condon says. At some point in the evening, Jackman will perform in a production number that was conceived by his Australia director, Baz Luhrmann.

•A cozier atmosphere. Condon doesn't just want a ceremony. He wants to throw a party.

If that means dismantling the Kodak Theatre to better encourage a sense of community among the attendees, so be it. "You don't have to have large columns or a big staircase or 20-foot-tall Oscars on stage," he says. "That's not in the bylaws."

They have hired David Rockwell, who designed the theater, to make adjustments and create sets.

•Room for spontaneity. Both producers believe the show has relied on too much pre-recorded material.

"That tradition started a few years ago, when they tried to avoid mistakes," Condon says. "But we have decided that mistakes are our friends. Out of more live segments will hopefully spring more spontaneity."

•Mystery presenters. When it was announced that the identity of the awards presenters would be kept secret, more than a few Oscar watchers questioned the move. Why not publicize who will appear?

"Do you actually think anyone tunes in to see someone present an award?" Mark says. "They suddenly hear so-and-so is presenting, and young males will watch? Well, no."

One switch: Instead of lining up last year's winners and stars with upcoming movies to tout, Condon and Mark are reaching out to those names associated with a 2008 movie. And there will be a few blasts from Hollywood's past, too.

•Three-hour show, not three-hour speeches. Both vow to adhere to the three-hour mark. "We have done exercises to see what we can better speed along and streamline," Condon says.

As for having the orchestra play off long-winded speechmakers, it's a situation they would rather avoid.

"It's so ungracious," Condon says. "We will do everything we can not to have to do it. We will still put a little fear into the winners not to go on." However, the 45-second rule still stands. Mark's suggestion: "Don't thank your laundress."

•Jack Nicholson — probably. One connection Mark will try to capitalize on is his long association with the epitome of Oscar cool, whose mischievous leer is always welcome, even if he didn't appear in a movie this year.

"He does embody Oscar," says Mark, who was involved with Terms of Endearment and As Good as It Gets, for which Nicholson won two of his three Academy Awards.

"The show went way out of fashion in the '60s and '70s," Condon says of the man behind the shades. "He singlehandedly brought it back when he was nominated for Easy Rider."

•Applause-free "In Memoriam" tribute. Regular Oscar watchers often cringe when homage is paid to those in the movie business who died in the past year. That is because the audience can't help but clap harder for better-known names, essentially turning the solemn segment into a popularity contest.

Not this year. "We can't control the applause," Condon says, "but we can control what you hear on TV."

If Condon and Mark can manage to channel the spirit and drive they usually invest into what they do and put it into the Oscar show, it probably can't help but make some sort of difference.

"It is fun putting on a show," Condon says.

"Yeah," Mark says. "He's Judy Garland. I'm Mickey Rooney."

Intermission is over. Back to work. "We have to dash and beg someone to present foreign film," Mark says. "We are hoping for Hillary Clinton."

On a more positive note, however, there also won't be the same old opening monologue, endless movie clips, an abundance of canned segments, silly prefab presenter banter and embarrassing interruptions of impassioned speeches.

Dammit! I like movie montages. Go check out Precious Images on youtube and don't tell me it's not great.

The nominations of a still relatively little-seen crop of best-picture contenders — “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk,” “The Reader” and “Slumdog Millionaire,” which together have accumulated less than half the box office of “The Dark Knight,” which was snubbed — are making it harder for producers of the Oscar ceremony to deliver on an earlier promise: to create a big night for the movies, even if some of the movies are not so big. Operatives of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are quietly scrambling to assemble an event that would make some extraordinary bows in the direction of the crowd while trying to do right by the honorees.

Producers of the show — to be hosted by Hugh Jackman and broadcast Feb. 22 on ABC — are even trying to liven up the proceedings by asking studios and others to provide scenes from future films, according to a request sent to various companies last month.

The idea, if the clips prove watchable, is for Mr. Jackman to sign off the broadcast with fresh 10-second snippets of two dozen new movies, to run on a split screen with the end credits.

Laurence Mark, the show’s producer, and Bill Condon, its executive producer, declined to discuss further specifics of a broadcast they had said would have surprises and a party atmosphere. But a number of people involved with the production — most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid conflict with the academy — described details of a ceremony that would try to reconnect with the moviegoing culture.

A production team under the immediate supervision of Michael Seligman, who has been a behind-the-scenes manager of Oscar shows since the 1980s, closed the Kodak Theater to its usual daily tourist visits as preparations began in earnest last week.

“They’re always obsessive about keeping things secret, but especially this year,” said the writer Bruce Vilanch, another Oscar perennial who is again working on the show.

That Mr. Seligman, Mr. Vilanch and Danette Herman, a longtime talent coordinator for the Oscars, remain on board signals that not everything is changing. All of the awards, other than those for scientific and technical achievement, for instance, will still be presented on screen, despite repeated attempts over the years to push some of the less exciting categories — say, documentary short subject — to an off-camera forum.

Though tight-lipped, Mr. Vilanch, whose role has expanded from supplying his usual one-liners to more elaborate script work, let slip that there might be a shift in what he called “the grouping” of awards, though he declined to say what that might mean.

Others said the show itself would have a narrative line, with the awards arranged to tell a story that will involve presenters as well as nominees. In all, it is a bit of show business elaborate enough to require guidance from Fatima Robinson, who worked with Mr. Condon as choreographer of his film of the musical “Dreamgirls.”

Exactly who the presenters might be remains something of a mystery. Academy officials said last month that they planned to preserve an element of surprise this year by declining to identify in advance the stars who will hand out the prizes.

There has been a whisper as well that some celebrity arrivals on Oscar night might not walk the red carpet at all — a twist that would force the curious actually to watch the show itself to see all the celebrities and the gowns, rather than getting their fill from outside news media that cover the arrivals for a host of outlets.

One of the more ticklish situations has involved the nominated songs. Mr. Mark and Mr. Condon lost a ratings draw when Bruce Springsteen, an Oscar winner for “Streets of Philadelphia,” was not nominated for his theme song for “The Wrestler.” Meanwhile the nomination of two songs from “Slumdog Millionaire” could give the evening a Bollywood flavor if the songs were performed onstage, as has often been done. The other nominated song, by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, is from “Wall-E.”

As of last week the plan was to build part of each song into a single production number. Mr. Jackman was expected to sing in another sequence assembled by the director Baz Luhrmann, whose credits include the movie musical “Moulin Rouge!,” and by the Broadway choreographer Rob Ashford.

Yet another film director, Bennett Miller, who was nominated in 2006 for his work on “Capote,” has been putting together a similarly novel sequence. It will feature some of the nominated filmmakers swapping thoughts with what the show’s insiders are calling “civilians,” the ordinary moviegoers who have drifted away from the last few broadcasts.

The biggest challenge, given the record, may be getting viewers to check out the retooled show at all. To that end ABC and the academy have for the first time begun a joint promotional program, coordinated by the Omelet advertising agency. “We decided that we’d get more bang for our buck if we had a fully integrated campaign with a consistent message,” said Janet Weiss, director of marketing for the academy.

The message, on posters and Web sites and in televised ads, aims to tell people that this year’s show has something even for viewers who may not care much for the nominees.

Anyway, Ms. Weiss said in a recent telephone interview, the more pop-minded fans should find a glimmer of comfort in the supporting actor nominations that went to Heath Ledger, as the Joker in “The Dark Knight,” and Robert Downey Jr., for his blackface turn in “Tropic Thunder.”

“The Oscars,” she said, “is a show for them too.”

Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, told the 112 contenders gathered at the annual nominees luncheon to expect a lot of new things at the Feb. 22 ceremony.

“Your categories are being presented in a completely different way. Heads up,” Ganis told actors. “Cinematographers, editors, composers. All of you guys. You’re in for a big surprise.”

From IC

They need to present the awards under a hail of gunfire and random flocks of rabid crows.

From IC

Death to red carpets?

Given the inexorable march of "Slumdog Millionaire" to glory, today's New York Times headline doesn't strike quite the right tone. The question isn't "Oscars Suspense: Will People Watch?"; it's "Oscar Suspense: Should We Just Give Up Already And Head Straight For The Bar?"

However, much in the spirit of the Los Angeles Times trying to create a solvent newspaper by killing the California section, Oscar producers Bill Condon and Laurence Mark think they might get better ratings if they killed the red carpet.

Witness Armageddon at hand:

"There has been a whisper as well that some celebrity arrivals on Oscar night might not walk the red carpet at all — a twist that would force the curious actually to watch the show itself to see all the celebrities and the gowns, rather than getting their fill from outside news media that cover the arrivals for a host of outlets." [NYT]

This suggestion, of course, is no less than the potential wholesale destruction of an entire ecosystem.

No red carpet means no red-carpet photos, thereby shrinking day-after Oscar coverage to the size of, say, the Eukanuba Dog Show. It means even longer and more incomprehensible Oscar speeches, since the winners will be obliged to shoehorn designer-credit inventories (lest they lose their freebie privileges) in their allotted 45 seconds.

And in a world where a cratering economy calls everything into question and where "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" is on track to earn $100 million in less than a month, all of this will further unravel the relevance of a program celebrating those movies that are almost impossible to make, difficult to attract audiences and lucky to break even.

For the love of God, men! No one should have that on their conscience.

Unless, of course, all of this is part of a fiendish plan to blow up the Oscars and start over. In which case, carry on.

CULVER CITY, Calif. – Bill Condon and Laurence Mark breeze into their offices at Sony Studios for a quick break during another marathon workday. The writer-director and producer, who worked together on 2006's "Dreamgirls," are joining forces again — this time to put on the 81st annual Academy Awards.

It's the first time Condon, 53, and Mark, 59, have produced an Oscar telecast, and throughout the process, they've been making their own rules. They chose entertainer Hugh Jackman to host, rather than the usual standup comedian, and have kept nearly every element of the production — including presenters and performers — secret.

Not even members of the academy staff know who'll take the stage on the night of Feb. 22.

The maverick producers took a few minutes to share their thoughts with The Associated Press about how they're preparing for Hollywood's biggest night.

___

AP: What have your lives been like since you've taken on this Oscar job?

Condon: We've both made a lot of movies, but it's never been as intense as this is. It really is. We're stumbling home at midnight every night and working on the weekends. It's a full-time thing.

Mark: Well because you have this deadline that is, well, finite. You can't fuss around ... You have a little leeway in movies, but you don't have any leeway here.

AP: How do you prepare for a job like this?

Condon: We watched a lot of old shows. We each had our favorites we went back to look at. Some of them held up, some of them didn't. We're both huge theater fans, so all of that stuff, and we both work in some way in live entertainment, so all of that comes in.

Mark: In a way, we do stand on the shoulders of all the Oscar producers before.

Condon: It's vaudeville. It really is putting on a vaudeville act and you've got 30 acts you're putting on basically and you hope that most of them are going to work.

AP: Why all the secrecy?

Condon: We wanted to restore a certain kind of mystery to it. When I look at the old shows, one of the great things is they're all giving this party and we're lucky to be invited to it. Recently it's become more just like a TV show where they promote everything, you know exactly who you're going to see. So I think you have to watch the show in order to find out what's going to happen, in order to see some of the dresses, in order to see some of the stars, and I think that just makes it more interesting as the thing goes on ... It just adds some interest.

Mark: We could just never figure out why you would say everything you were going to do before you did it. Why not just kind of do it and hope people tune in to see what you're doing.

AP: Could it backfire?

Mark: I think people tune in to see the Oscars. I don't think they tune in to see any one person, or any one person perform or present. I think they tune in to see the Oscars and what we're all up to this year with them, so that is our theory.

AP: Did you get any resistance from the academy or the network with that approach?

Mark: It took the academy a moment or two but I think they actually got on board very quickly with it. The academy has been around for a chunk of time and they do have traditions, and we're honoring as many of them as we can possibly manage to honor. But one or two (we're) breaking and they seem to enjoy the fact that things like this are going on, because by the way, you're talking about it, aren't you?

AP: How much room is there to revamp a show that requires 24 awards be presented on camera?

Condon: That is a given and it's a big chunk of the show: we're going to give out awards. The thing is maybe give them out in a different way, find a different way to present them. That's what we're hoping to do across the board, just freshen them up and surprise people again with the way these awards are given.

AP: Let's go through some of the rumors. True that you're taking some things out of the Kodak Theater?

Mark: There may be a bit of that.

AP: Is it true presenters won't walk the red carpet?

Mark: Of course there will be some presenters on the red carpet for heaven's sake. But there will be some surprises, some presenters who won't be on the red carpet. But it's not like there's some edict going on here.

AP: Are you really planning to close the show with clips from forthcoming films?

Mark: We're collecting them. The theory being this was 2008, and look at all the things you may have to look forward to in 2009 so that the show doesn't just end with "Good night."

Condon: It keeps you watching right through. The one rule we have is it's nothing that's appeared on trailers so it will be — if it works — a glimpse of stuff you've never seen before of the movies coming up.

AP: How will you measure success?

Condon: We're very excited by all the things we're doing and if we get close to executing them the way that we're planning, I think we'll feel very good about it. (Veteran Oscar producer) Gil Cates gave us that advice which was you have to please yourself and you're never going to please everybody. That's part of the show too. There's always going to be people who pick at it. We're ready for that.

Mark: One of the things we'll be happy about is if we come in close to three hours, to be very honest and not to be too artistic about it, but we are trying very hard to make that happen. The closer we get, the happier we'll be. It hasn't been three hours in decades.

AP: So you're really keeping all the presenters secret until the big night — except for the ones who out themselves?

Mark: The ones that out themselves will have their all-access passes denied.

With less than 17 days remaining in the bone-grinding death-march that is the awards season, we find ourselves limping to the end of a week where the most significant Oscar-related news is generated by a fancy lunch, a yearly event where nominees are treated to a free meal before being shown photographs of the bound-and-gagged loved ones who will be harmed in the event their acceptance speeches run long. Given that Slumdog Millionaire’s seemingly inevitable steamrolling of the Best Picture competition has drained the tension from the evening’s biggest contest, it’s fallen to first-time Oscar producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon to generate some excitement with a totally revamped telecast, the details of which—such as the small matter of who will actually be on stage to hand out all those tiny, petrified eunuchs—have been guarded like the location of Dick Cheney’s secret suspended-animation chamber. What mind-melting innovations will Mark and Condon let loose on an unsuspecting audience of millions on Hollywood’s Biggest Night? Some hints have already been pried loose by reporters, but now we present our best guesses about what we might see during this reimagined ceremony.

“Hey, We Screwed Up”: A Tribute To The Dark Knight
In a ground-breaking attempt to lure viewers alienated by this award season’s most glaring Best Picture snub, the usually doggedly out-of-touch Academy will dedicate a ten-minute segment to celebrating critical darling The Dark Knight’s $500-plus-million box office run immediately following Heath Ledger’s posthumous Best Supporting Actor win. The tribute package will include the unprecedented gathering of every living Batman (Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, and Christian Bale) on a single stage, who’ll join in an imaginatively choreographed piece set to Prince’s “Bat Dance.” At the segment’s conclusion, the recently embattled Bale will be given a moment to publicly apologize to the Terminator: Salvation director of photography he berated in a now-infamous clip virally circulated via the internet, explaining, “Once you’re Batman, there’s a certain darkness you can never quite escape, especially when somebody fucking starts fiddling with the lights when you’re trying to access a really painful emotion. Sorry, sorry. There I go again,” a sentiment that prompts the nearby Kilmer to collapse in a sobbing, empathetic heap.

The Oscar Cannon
Acknowledging the impolitic truth that the television audience couldn’t care less about the not-so-sexy (but still vitally important to the moviemaking craft! etc etc) categories that leadenly occupy the show’s middle hours, Condon and Mark will instruct victorious editors/sound designers/short-form documentarians to remain at their seats following their wins, then deliver their statuettes to their places in the Kodak Theater balcony with a high-powered, pneumatic cannon wielded by specially trained spokesmodel-marksmen. Not only will this change save precious airtime, it will inject a sports-arena-like atmosphere into the proceedings, transforming normally reserved attendees into rabidly engaged fans eager to snatch a lofted Oscar from the outstretched hands of a costumer with poor reaction time. (Winners in these categories will still receive their customary standby tickets to the Governor’s Ball, where they’ll be free to nosh on any Wolfgang Puck–catered leftovers cooling on the largely picked-clean buffet tables.)

A Trip To The Green Room
Coverage of the red carpet, the ceremony itself, and backstage press conferences only tell part of the Oscar story. In an attempt to recapture some of the uninhibited, clubby feel of a Hollywood golden age unfamiliar to many younger viewers, neophyte host Hugh Jackman will occasionally drop by the show’s green room for some comic relief, where presenters, bored stars tired of sitting in the audience, and other open-bar-seeking VIPs throw back drinks and crack wise about the evening’s highlights. The segment will generate a watercooler-worthy moment when Best Actor nominee Mickey Rourke threatens to staple-gun an overeager Jackman for repeatedly offering to recreate one of the The Wrestler’s lapdancing scenes as Rourke tries to relax on a couch, insisting that “Marisa Tomei will think it’s hilarious!”

The Being Jack Nicholson CamA staple of the Oscar telecast for decades, reaction shots of a Ray-Ban-clad, shark-grinning Jack Nicholson have long been the best friend of producers looking to salvage a clunky acceptance speech joke with one of the living legend’s inimitable “Hey, don’t look at me!” shrugs. This year, Nicholson’s signature sunglasses will contain a tiny camera that allows the audience to experience what he sees from his front-row seat (the tips of his shoes, the glistening flop-sweat of a floundering presenter, the Armani-draped cleavage of a nearby starlet) in real-time.

Robert Downey Jr. Does Whatever The Hell He Wants
After three hours of speeches, montages and musical numbers, incorrigible Hollywood raconteur and Best Supporting Actor nominee Robert Downey Jr. will be given five minutes with which to do anything he wishes, in hopes that the thespian’s boundless energy will revive an exhausted audience’s flagging interest in the show. Due to the inherent unpredictability of such a segment, the Oscar producers will impose an additional 15 seconds of censor-appeasing delay, just in case an improvised, one-man scene involving Downey’s Iron Man and Tropic Thunder characters on a Tijuana bender takes an FCC-provoking turn.

Is this ceremony going to be an epic failure...?

It’s one of those nights where it seems the whole world takes the night off and enjoys the show. What I was most excited about was, and I don’t want to give anything away, but there’s a twist this year. I feel like I’m part of something new, part of a new initiative, a new era. It feels like [Oscarcast producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon] are guiding me in a way that will make the show fun and quicker.

We say “host” here, but in my country we would call it an “emcee” or a “master of ceremonies.” Your job is to ensure that everyone has the best time possible and has a great night. I don’t feel the show should be about the host. My role is to keep the night flowing, fun, to keep it inclusive. I have a game plan, I have a number of stuff written and things like that but at the same time I think it’s also important as the host to be ready to go with whatever happens. I think my experience in theater is no matter what you’re doing, you want to give people that sense that anything can happen, and let’s face it, at the Oscars, anything can.