Deadline‘s Pete Hammond is reporting that last February’s Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, who were recently and somewhat arrogantly re-hired by outgoing Academy chief Hawk Koch to produce the 2014 telecast, have offered the host gig once again to Seth McFarlane. With all the flack that McFarlane got from women about “We Saw Your Boobs”?
It’s possible that Mcfarlane won’t be able to take the job, Hammond writes, because he’ll be making a Western comedy called A Million Ways To Die in the West. But it could happen. Why McFarlane again? Because the last show’s ratings were pretty good, particular among younger males. But how do women feel about this? Does this smack of old-boy’s-club cronyism at its most tedious or what?
And by the way, with Zadan and Meron running things again does this mean we’ll have to sit through another Chicago fantasia or some other tribute to one of their films?
Nikki Finke was dead-on when she recently wrote the following on 4.16: “choosing the producers of the Oscars is probably the single most important job of the AMPAS president. And yet Hawk [Koch], serving for only one year and knowing he was a lame duck, broke protocol and today announced the re-hiring of Zadan/Meron for the March 2, 2014 telecast. That should have been his successor’s privilege and responsibility.
“Tom Sherak tried to do the same for the February 24th, 2013, telecast by soliciting Lorne Michaels as Oscars producer and NBC Late Night host Jimmy Fallon as Oscars host. Sherak went to the Academy’s Board Of Governors on his own initiative and said, “If I can find a producer, would you be interested?” The Board said yes. But Koch as 1st vp told colleagues Sherak shouldn’t be doing this within a mere matter of weeks before the new president was elected. Koch even complained directly to Sherak about it. Disney nixed the choice of Fallon — and Koch made his own choices. Now he took that choice away from his successor.”
![](https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/wp-content/themes/amory/patreon-banner.jpg)