Jimmy Kimmel will host the 96th Oscar ceremony, on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. The name of the popular talk show host with his name on the ABC channel, the same as the ceremony, has been announced first this Wednesday night through the three most important media outlets in the industry: The Hollywood Reporter and Variety magazines, and the website Deadline. It will be the fourth time and the second in a row that Kimmel will be the face of Hollywood’s biggest night, after 2017 (the year of the famous confusion of envelopes for Best Film between “La La Land” and “Moonlight”), 2018 and this year. The four times are equal to Whoopi Goldberg and Jack Lemmon, with from now on only ahead of Johnny Carson ( 5 times), Billy Crystal (9) and Bob Hope (19).”I’ve always dreamed of hosting the Oscars exactly four times,” Kimmel said in the official statement released about an hour later, which also notes the “enthusiasm ” by Bill Kramer, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “Following his triumphant return to the Oscars stage this year, we are honored to have Jimmy back to guide us through one of the most beloved festivities in entertainment,” said Craig Erwich, president of ABC Entertainment. The ceremony’s producers, the Academy and ABC play it safe for an event whose television ratings have eroded rapidly in recent years: the March 10 ceremony was seen by 18.75 million viewers across USA, a slight improvement on the 16.6 million in 2022 (the year of Will Smith’s slap to Chris Rock), but far from the 33 million who saw Kimmel’s debut in 2017. “Barbie” (by Greta Gerwig), “ Oppenheimer” (Christopher Nolan), “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Martin Scorsese), “Poor Creatures” (Yorgos Lanthimos), “Maestro” (Bradley Cooper), “American Fiction” (Cord Jefferson) and “The Holdovers” ( Alexader Payne) are the titles at the forefront to collect more nominations on January 23, 2024 for the 96th ceremony.
Oscars play it safe: Jimmy Kimmel returns to host the ceremony
