Academy CEO Hints at Oscars Ceremony Having Producers for ‘Multiple Years’

The new Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences CEO Bill Kramer said in an interview Tuesday that he has big ideas for the Oscars, one of which is having a producer who can handle the show across “multiple years.”

“I think bringing on producers for multiple years is advisable and we are working on that, as well,” Kramer told the Academy’s A.Frame digital magazine on Tuesday. “The 95th gives us a great opportunity to knit together the incredible legacy of the Oscars, the diverse and powerful work we do across the Academy, and our vision for the future.”

This would be a shift for the Academy. For years, the Academy has typically cycled through various guest producers of the Oscars show, including the likes of Will Packer (with Shayla Cowan) earlier this year and Steven Soderbergh (with Jesse Collins and Stacey Sher) the year before that during the COVID-era ceremony held at Los Angeles’ Union Station.

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The most notable exception to the single-year producers came with the team of Neil Meron and the late Craig Zadan, who produced three shows in a row between 2013 and 2015. Before that, Don Mischer oversaw the 2011 and 2012 shows with different producing partners, and the late Gil Cates produced six shows in a row from 1990 through 1995, and then eight additional shows between 1997 and 2008.

Of those producers, Cates and Mischer were hired on a year-to-year basis rather than being locked in for multiple years, as Kramer is suggesting. Zadan and Meron were hired to produce three consecutive ceremonies by then-Academy president Hawk Koch, but that arrangement was not publicly revealed until the final year of their stint.

Kramer also hinted at the controversy around having eight different technical categories presented during the Oscars pre-show and then edited into the live ceremony, something that sparked massive backlash from critics, those in the industry and even the eventual winners. Though he stopped short of saying that all the awards would be presented live again in 2023, he hinted he still wants to honor the contributions of those across the film industry.

“The energy around the show should feel like a massive celebration of cinema and the awards — our legacy, our artists, our movies, our future. We are already hard at work with our partners at Disney-ABC on the show,” he said. “I would love to see: all artistic and scientific disciplines honored on the show; past Oscar winners on stage; celebrations of iconic past wins; and an emotional investment in the nominees.”

No producers have been set for the 2023 Oscars, but the show will be held on March 12, 2023. Read Kramer’s full interview here.

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