The Oscars are looking for a dynamic duo.
Two people will handle emcee duties at the 2016 Academy Awards, one of the newly announced producers tells EW. And it sounds like they already have a pair in mind.
“There will be multiple hosts for sure – there will be two,” says David Hill, the former Fox executive who will produce the show with Reginald Hudlin, a producer of Django Unchained and a former entertainment president at BET.
When asked why he thought two hosts would be better, Hill hesitated. “Two is better than one,” he said, before joking. “Just imagine, you’re in there. One of your hosts drops dead from cardiac arrest. What do you do? Second host goes on! And you keep going. … Note to self. Check out their heart rates.”
But it’s not much of a leap to figure that the answer to “why two” is simple: they have a team that’s already well-known in mind. And although Hill is not yet ready to reveal which pairing he and Hudlin want to host next year’s Oscars, there are a few obvious possibilities:
One of them is Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, whose Key & Peele sketch show is ending its run on Comedy Central on an ultra high-note. Their sense of humor is provocative, fearless, and covers a broad array of topics, from the serious to the silly. Among their fans: President Barack Obama, who had Key join him to recreate their “Luther the anger translator” sketch at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. If the Academy lands them, they’ll be getting two of pop culture’s strongest and funniest satirists.
Another option: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who ended their three-year contract with the Golden Globes last December. Each of their shows for The Hollywood Foreign Press awards dinners was considered a knock-out, but they were prevented from doing any other hosting duties as a result. The Academy may not want to appear to be cribbing from the Globes, but if they go with Fey and Poehler, there won’t be many complaining. Oscar fans have been hoping for this for years.
The last time two people hosted the Oscars together was in 2011, when James Franco and Anne Hathaway delivered an appearance that was critically lambasted. The year before that, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin paired up in an appearance that was much more well-regarded.
From there, you’d have to go all the way back to 1987 to find multiple hosts, when Chevy Chase, Paul Hogan, and Goldie Hawn oversaw the show.
If they have any trouble landing their duo, Hill says he and Hudlin have a back-up plan: “If we run out of options, it’s going to be Reggie and me as hosts.”
Got a suggestion or a guess about who it’ll be? Leave it in the comments …
