hosted the 85th Academy Awards|alt=Seth MacFarlane in 2012 Due to declining interest and viewership in recent ceremonies, the Academy hired a new production team in an attempt to improve ratings and revive interest in the ceremony. Reports surfaced that Academy then-president
Tom Sherak approached television producer
Lorne Michaels for producing duties with actor and comedian
Jimmy Fallon as host. However, the telecast's broadcaster
ABC objected to these selections, and both men declined afterward. With newly elected Academy president
Hawk Koch assuming leadership duties, the Academy hired
Neil Meron and
Craig Zadan in August 2012 to produce the ceremony. Two months later, the Academy announced that actor, director, animator, singer, and comedian
Seth MacFarlane would host the telecast. MacFarlane expressed that it was truly an honor and a thrill to be asked to host Academy Awards commenting, "It's truly an overwhelming privilege to be asked to host the Oscars. My thoughts upon hearing the news were, one, I will do my utmost to live up to the high standards set forth by my predecessors; and two, I hope they don't find out I hosted the
Charlie Sheen Roast." In an unusual break from previous years, producers Meron and Zadan announced that the on-air telecast of the ceremony would be simply referred to as "The Oscars" instead of "The 85th Annual Academy Awards". In keeping with the theme of the evening, numerous
film scores from various motion pictures were played intermittently throughout the ceremony; most notable was
John Williams' theme music from
Jaws, which was used to goad winners off the stage if their acceptance speeches were overly long. In a departure from having the orchestra perform in the same theatre, composer
Williams Ross conducted the orchestra from a studio inside the
Capitol Records Building a mile away. Several other people were involved with the telecast and its promotion.
Tony Award-winning art director
Derek McLane designed a new set and stage design for the ceremony.
Rob Ashford served as choreographer for several musical numbers during the event. Comedians
Ben Gleib and Annie Greenup served as correspondents and hosts of "Oscar Road Trip", a nationwide bus tour promoting the ceremony in eleven major cities across the United States. Six young film students from colleges across the country, who were selected from a contest conducted by AMPAS and
MtvU, were recruited to appear onstage to deliver Oscar statuettes to the presenters during the gala.
Introduction of electronic voting system In January 2012, AMPAS announced that it would create electronic voting system starting with the 2013 ceremony as another method for members to select the nominees and winners during the process. According to AMPAS Chief Operating Officer Ric Robertson, the implementation of the digital ballot was designed to increase participation among members in the voting process and to provide an alternative method of voting in case of emergency. The deadline to submit nomination ballots was originally scheduled for January 3, but technological errors and glitches prompted the Academy to move the deadline one day later.
Box office performance of nominated films None of the nine Best Picture nominees were among the top ten releases in box office during the nominations. However, four of those films had already earned $100 million in American and Canadian ticket sales. At the time of the announcement of nominations on January 10,
Lincoln was the highest-grossing film among the Best Picture nominees with $144 million in domestic box office receipts. The other three films to earn $100 million prior to nominations were
Django Unchained with $112 million,
Argo with $110 million, and
Les Misérables with $103 million. Among the five remaining Best Picture nominees,
Life of Pi was the next highest-grossing film with $91.8 million followed by
Silver Linings Playbook ($35.7 million),
Beasts of the Southern Wild ($11.2 million),
Zero Dark Thirty ($4.4 million), and finally
Amour ($311,247). The combined gross of the nine Best Picture nominees when the Oscars were announced was $620 million with an average gross of $68.9 million per film. The other top 50 box office hits that earned nominations were ''Marvel's The Avengers
(1st), Skyfall
(4th), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
(6th), Ted
(13th), Snow White and the Huntsman
(15th), Prometheus
(20th), and Mirror Mirror'' (44th). The song has mixed reviews. On the positive side,
The Guardian reported, "MacFarlane was employed partly to puncture the event's pomposity, which he did by lightheartedly pointing out that some of the world's most
self-important people regularly get their kit off for money".
Critical reviews The show received a mixed reception from media publications. Some media outlets were more critical of the show. Columnist
Owen Gleiberman of
Entertainment Weekly commented "By calling constant attention to the naughty factor", MacFarlane created "an echo chamber of outrage, working a little too hard to top himself with faux-scandalous gags about race, Jews in Hollywood, and the killing of Abraham Lincoln."
The Washington Post television critic
Hank Stuever bemoaned, "There was nothing notably terrible about the show, and nothing particularly enthralling." Regarding MacFarlane's performance as host, Stuever noted, "What you got was a combination of sicko and retro, an Oscar show hosted by someone who waited until Oscar night to discover that he's only so-so at stand-up comedy." Television editor
Alan Sepinwall of
HitFix lamented that the ceremony made for a "frequently messy, but occasionally surprising and/or entertaining evening." He added that MacFarlane "had some funny moments here and there, but he missed way more than he hit, and Frat Boy Seth quickly assumed dominance as the evening went along." Other media outlets received the broadcast and more positively. Tim Goodman of
The Hollywood Reporter praised MacFarlane's performance saying that he did "impressively better than one would have wagered." He also noted that he added "plenty of niceties with a little bit of the
Ricky Gervais bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you thing and worked the juxtaposition rather nicely.
Chicago Tribune television critic Nina Metz lauded MacFarlane for keeping "a solid handle on the proceedings." She also remarked that the host "opened with a series of jokes that were bona fide winners, landing on just the right tone: confident but not cocksure".
Associated Press critic
Frazier Moore extolled MacFarlane observing that he "seized the camera Sunday as host of ABC's Oscarcast and proved to its vast audience that he's a ridiculously versatile entertainer, a guy who can be as charming as he is famously irreverent, even polarizing."
Ratings and reception The American telecast on ABC drew in an average of 40.38 million people over its length, which was a 3% increase from the previous year's ceremony. The show also drew higher
Nielsen ratings compared to the two previous ceremonies with 24.47% of households watching over a 35.65 share. In addition, the program scored its highest key demo ratings in six years with a 13.71 rating over a 33.45 share among viewers in the 18–49 demographic. In July 2013, the ceremony presentation received nine nominations for the
65th Primetime Emmys. The following month, the ceremony didn't win any of the nominations. ==
In Memoriam ==