A couple of days ago we brought you the news that Eddie Murphy was in contention to host this year’s Oscars. This has now become a reality with official confirmation from the Academy, Murphy himself and the producers: Brett Ratner and Don Mischer. With this announcement, it is clear that this year the Academy have no plans to improve on the disaster of Franco and Hathaway’s hosting.
Brett Ratner has a fan base of one, himself. He has no creativity or originality in him at all. He’s a man who coasts by on having A-list celebrities on his speed dial list and being big friends with insiders. Now there’s Eddie Murphy, whose talent as a performer has been very dubious of late, in fact his best work has been in films when he isn’t physically on screen. But his recent ‘comedies’ show that he doesn’t have the comic timing or the funny bone to carry a four hour ceremony which gets by on its humour.
Producer Don Mischer has said:
Eddie is a truly ground-breaking performer, whose amazingly diverse array of roles has won him a devoted audience of all ages. His quick wit and charisma will serve him very well as Oscar host.
I wonder which one of these diverse array of roles led them to choose this guy. Because for me all he’s ever played is loud mouthed annoying guy. Sometimes it works. Beverly Hills Cop, Trading Places and of course Dreamgirls, which was the one role that shows us he actually does have diversity, but then he choose to squander it on shit like Norbit and Meet Dave.
Brett Ratner has said:
Eddie is a comedic genius, one of the greatest and most influential live performers ever. With his love of movies, history of crafting unforgettable characters and his iconic performances – especially on stage – I know he will bring excitement, spontaneity and tremendous heart to the show Don and I want to produce in February.
Fair also, but he hasn’t done stand up performing for 24 years, outside of a couple of hosting stints on SNL. And hosting SNL is not nearly the same as hosting the Oscars. It requires someone who is relevant, fresh and funny to really bring something new to that gig to make it different. Murphy hasn’t been any of the above for years. Of course I could be wrong but when the best Oscar host ever: Billy Crystal has shown interest in hosting again, why the heck would you go with Eddie Murphy?
Source: Deadline