Oscars 2022: Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall to host
Academy Awards have not had an emcee in three years
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Your support makes all the difference.Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall will be the hosts of the 2022 Academy Awards.
After three years without a host, the Oscars are making up for lost time with three for its 94th ceremony.
It has been 35 years since as many as three people hosted Hollywood’s biggest event, and never have that many women held the emcee position in a single night.
According to Hollywood trade publication Variety, the trio are in final talks to present the proceedings. The hosts will be confirmed officially on Tuesday morning (15 February) on Good Morning America.
Each actor will be responsible for one hour of the three-hour broadcast, airing live on ABC on 27 March.
Girls Trip producer Will Packer is producing this year’s ceremony. Hall has been in several of Packer’s movies, including Think Like a Man and Little.
Schumer and Sykes each have a connection with ABC, the channel hosting the broadcast: Schumer’s series Life & Beth is coming to Hulu, which is owned by ABC’s parent company, Disney; Sykes stars in Black-ish, which airs on ABC.
The decision to have three hosts has been made in an effort to attract a broader audience to the ABC telecast, which has reported declining viewing figures in recent years.
Before the latest news, commentators had discussed Jimmy Kimmel, Tiffany Haddish, Pete Davidson, and Tom Holland as potential hosts.
The Oscars have remained hostless since 2019 when comedian Kevin Hart stepped down following backlash he faced due to a series of old homophobic tweets that had resurfaced.
Kimmel is the last celebrity to host the Oscars, having fronted the ceremony in 2018.
The 2019 hostless awards attracted more viewers than Kimmel’s broadcast the year prior, bringing in a viewership of 29.56 million.
That figure decreased in 2020 to 23.64 million before drastically falling last year to 10.4 million.
This year’s Oscar nominees were announced earlier this month (8 February). Netflix’s The Power of the Dog leads the pack with 12 nominations, while Denis Villeneuve’s Dune follows close behind with 10 nods.
Meanwhile, West Side Story and Belfast picked up seven nominations each.
You can find a full list of this year’s Oscar nominees here.
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