UPDATE: Anne Thompson has now posted this story (which she’s been working on a while) in full with — imagine that — sourced information.
EARLIER: Over at Deadline Hollywood Daily, Nikki Finke conveys what we all know: that AMPAS brass would love a do-over of last year’s Oscarcast and have already approached Bill Condon and Laurence Mark about directing and producing the show once again. The new news, however, is that, in the wake of the duo’s “thanks but no thanks” (busy, busy), the Academy is going to approach Hugh Jackman to host the show once again.
This is, as Anne pointed out in last week’s edition of Oscar Talk (wherein we also discussed ideas for hosts and producers), putting the cart before the horse as no producer has been nailed down yet. Finke floats the idea of Joe Roth again (a confidante of newly tapped Academy president Tom Sherak, also mentioned by Anne last week). But she also reports murmurs that Hawk Koch and Joel Silver separately offered to produce the show.
It’s all rumor-mill stuff right now, and Finke says that Jackman’s handlers will suggest he decline the offer if it is extended, so there’s no way of knowing what’s true and what’s not at this point. But it’s getting to be crunch time. Let’s get on with it…