Oscar Telecast Spoilers

Posted on February 23, 2007

Nikki Finke has eight major spoilers about Sunday's Oscar telecast. Don't read any further if you don't want to know!

One that has already been reported in the press is that Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas will present the award for Best Director together, as a trio. Sort of like The Three Tenors, but with less singing. A big change this year is that the Best Supporting Actor and Actres awards will not be given out at the beginning of the show, as has happened in year's past. All acting awards will be giving out in the last hour. That's not going to help ratings, if you ask us. Here's another one:

I can reveal another secret which the Academy is keeping -- that Tom Cruise will be presenting the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to ex-Paramount mogul Sherry Lansing. (This year, the Academy took the unusual step of not announcing which awards the celeb presenters will give out. This was done supposedly to heighten the suspense. As if...) Having Tom and Sherry do this together is an inside joke for Hollywood. Because both were shown the door at Paramount by parent company boss, Viacom's Sumner Redstone. Trust me, Hollywood is going to get a kick out of this, even if the folks watching at home may not understand its significance. (Then again, the Oscars are always filled with inside jokes enjoyed by the Industry alone.) Of course, Lansing greenlighted many Cruise films during her years at Paramount, where Tom's production company used to have its home. So the choice makes sense. But it's also a corporate laugh riot.

The word from insiders is that the production has a good chance of being the longest Oscar telecast in history, with lots of boring awards the public doesn't care about and lots of features that no one wants to see. Oh, yeah, and Ellen is going to dance with the penguins from Happy Feet. We have to be honest: none of this bodes well for the show. Let's hope it will be better than we think it's going to be.

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