Oscar Crisis as Two Big Names Turn Down Thankless Host Gig

Comedians John Mulaney and Jimmy Kimmel have both made clear they will not be hosting the 2025 Oscars.

Variety reported that Kimmel turned down the gig earlier this summer, citing no particular reason, and Mulaney expects to be too busy with other projects (including a potentially renewed Everybody’s in L.A. on Netflix) to have the time.

The news may come as a surprise to a lot of regular Oscar viewers, as Kimmel has hosted the event four times since 2017 and Mulaney has proven himself a natural at all the skills an Oscars emcee would need.

It’s also a disappointment for the many viewers who loved Mulaney’s Field of Dreams monologue last year, not to mention his well-received hosting stint at The Governors Awards several weeks before it. Mulaney might be many viewers’ No. 1 pick for an Oscars host, but his fans will have to keep their hopes up for next year’s ceremony instead.

It’s not clear who will be the next host, because nobody seems to want the gig.

There was once at time where Oscar hosts enjoyed themselves so much it was no surprise they came back again. Comedian/actor Bob Hope, for instance, hosted a record number of 19 times from 1940 to 1978.

Actor Billy Crystal hosted nine times between 1990 and 2012, and Tonight Show host Johnny Carson hosted five times from 1979 to 1984.

These days, however, it’s rare for a host to come back more than once. Alec Baldwin, who co-hosted alongside Steve Martin in 2010, later called the gig “a thankless job,” one that he will “never, never, never” do again.

Baldwin complained that the Oscars should be “a very tight show with a lot of serious, cineastic appreciation,” but instead it’s typically dragged out for three-plus hours for financial reasons. “ABC and the Academy, they have no interest in doing a tight, better-produced show,” he said. “They are forced, because of economic constraints, to have a flabby, tired show.”

Anne Hathaway is another one-time host who will likely never give the gig another shot. After her disastrous gig alongside James Franco in 2011, she said she wished she’d trusted her initial instinct, which was to turn the offer down straight away.

“It’s just a no-win situation. You’re not trained at this, how is this going to enhance your life?” she said in a 2020 interview. “Even the people who do it spectacularly well—like Hugh Jackman, Jimmy Kimmel, Ellen DeGeneres—usually just get a ‘meh’ from everyone. It’s a really hard gig to stick the landing on.”

Even the agreed-upon good hosts, like two-time emcee DeGeneres, agree that it’s a “thankless job.” Not only will critics rarely appreciate them, but merely accepting the gig means opening themselves up to renewed scrutiny in the months preceding it.

That’s why comedian Kevin Hart famously stepped down from the gig in 2018 after some old, homophobic tweets of his resurfaced. The ceremony that year went without a host, for the first time since 1989, and the incident ensured that few comedians with past edgy material would be interested in the position.

So who will be hosting the 98th Oscars next year? At this point it seems less a question of who the producers will choose as how far down the bottom of the barrel they will have to scrape.