Oscars Team on Hulu Problems, Karla Jokes, If Conan Will Return

Conan O’Brien is welcome back to host the Oscars anytime, Walt Disney TV’s Rob Mills, exec VP of unscripted and alternative entertainment, told Variety Monday morning. Mills was basking in the high marks that both O’Brien and the overall Oscars ceremony received for a show that aimed to bring back traditional Academy Awards staples, like a lush orchestra, while adding plenty of O’Brien’s signature cheekiness.

“Conan absolutely nailed it,” Mills said. “It was this sense memory of 30 years of not only him in late night, but when he would host the Emmys and all the stuff he’s done. This was almost like Conan’s greatest hits. You had a little bit of everything: An incredibly funny monologue that had the hallmarks of what Conan does: silliness, self-deprecation, jokes that are funny — and then 20 minutes later you realize they’re really funny.”

So will he return? “That’s really up to Conan, but I know we would love to have him back,” Mills said. “I don’t know if this counts as an official offer, but I really hope he wants to come back. It was a joy and a privilege, and probably the only sort of methadone I could have for not being able to do the show with Jimmy Kimmel.”

If there was one big knock on the Oscars on Sunday, it was that Disney finally added a Hulu livestream to its ABC coverage of the Oscars and …. it didn’t necessarily go well. First, viewers had trouble logging into Hulu on Sunday, and expressed their displeasure on social media. At the time, Hulu chalked that up to “a technical issue with a login system created issues for some viewers.”

By the middle of the show, on the Hulu Support account on X, the company triumphantly announed that its engineers had figured out the problem, and that glitch had been solved. And that was true until the best actress award. At that point, the Oscars telecast was running long, and for some reason, the Hulu livestream didn’t take into account that the awards show might spill past 10:30 p.m. ET. Oops. As a result, some users had the livestream end because of “a scheduling system issue.”

The glitch was obviously a teachable moment for Disney, ABC, Hulu and the Academy. Disney and the Academy are about to get serious on talks to renew their deal beyond 2028, so although there are still several more years to get it right, this will likely be part of their conversation. (Of course, the Oscars were easily accessible, as always, over-the-air on ABC.)

“This is not my area of expertise, and obviously you feel bad for the people who were trying to watch the show — it’s unfortunate,” Mills said. “I think the best thing to do is look at it as a way to figure it out and make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s not the first time this has happened [in streaming] and probably won’t be the last… but we are at least moving into this world where we are meeting viewers where they are.

“At the Walt Disney Company as a whole, our superpower is we have a broadcaster, we have a premium streamer, so anywhere you want to watch this show, we want to make sure you can watch this,” Mills continued. “And for the most part, that works out great. It works spectacularly well with ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ Onward and upward, and next year will be a better experience.”

This year’s show didn’t necessarily re-invent the Oscar format, but it did play with it. Mills credited Oscars producers Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan, as well as O’Brien’s longtime producer Jeff Ross, for the telecast’s choices. Here are some burning questions answered and behind-the-scenes tidbits about this year’s Oscars:

The recent practice of having “Fab Five” presenters honoring this year’s acting nominees had been scrapped prior to the Karla Sofia Gascón social media scandal. “I can tell you, my hand to God, that was not ever the plan. The Fab Five plans were done months before [the scandal],” Mills said. “I think the problem is if we do it again with with actors, maybe it’s also with people who’ve just been nominated. You have to remember when you’re winnowing it down to people who have won in the past in those respective categories, the list is not incredibly long. It’s hard to get that many people to get there. They have to book 20 Academy Award-winning actors and actresses. It is really difficult.”

And that’s why the “Fab Five” nominee delivery was utilized to shine more of a spotlight on artisans — including the one above, featuring Lily-Rose Depp, Elle Fanning, John Lithgow, Connie Nielsen, Bowen Yang, there to say a few good words about the Oscar-nominated costumers from their films. “So, this was always planned [to focus the “Fab Five” presentations this year on artisans categories],” Mills said. “It also was a way to sort of give a shine a light on some of the technical categories too, which is why it was so great with costuming and cinematography. So, this had nothing to do with Karla.”

Demi Moore did not know the show would open with Conan climbing out of her body, “The Substance” style. This was a bit that was dreamed up early in O’Brien’s brainstorming sessions — as the visuals of “The Substance” were some of the year’s most iconic. “I thought that was great,” Mills said. “When we talk about the greatest hits of Conan, all I could think of was every time he would do an anniversary show, he would have one of these filmed bits. You thought a lot about Billy Crystal when he would open up with those great pre-tapes.”

O’Brien kept the Gascón jokes to a minimum, because the scandal had already died down a bit by Sunday night — and he didn’t want it to set the wrong tone. Later, O’Brien’s joke about Kendrick Lamar calling Drake a pedophile was a bit more spicy — and although it raised eyebrows inside ABC, Mills approved. “When he did that in rehearsal, I was with Jeff Ross, his producer, and we were like, that joke is going to kill. And it was great! It was sort of unexpected from Conan, but that’s what made it kind of fun.”

The “Oz” medley of Ariana Grande singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (from “The Wizard of Oz”), Cynthia Erivo singing “Home” (from “The Wiz”) and the two of them singing “Defying Gravity” (from “Wicked”) was pitched by producer Kapoor early in the Oscar planning process as an opener. “That was all Raj and Katy,” Mills said. “You can’t just assume Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are going to show up and sing. This is the first time they have sung publicly since the movie together, and especially ‘Defying Gravity.’ This was always the way Raj pitched it. I think this probably was in his mind for a long time he just he had every beat down.”

The idea of selecting Doja Cat, Raye and Lisa for the James Bond tribute came out of Kapoor’s experience as a Grammys producer. That included how were those songs — Lisa singing “Live and Let Die,” Doja Cat singing “Diamonds Are Forever” and Raye covering “Skyfall” — were selected. Reviews were mixed on this one, but the producers thought it went well. “Raj, who is one of the producers on the Grammys, has great relationships with talent, and so he was able to get those women there,” Mills said.

The idea came later for Margaret Qualley to kick off the Bond tribute with a dance. “I think Margaret was sort of thought about afterwards,” Mills said. “I thought that was absolutely incredible. She was great. And certainly, I’m sure they’re looking now and thinking, this is somebody who needs to be part of the James Bond franchise in some way, shape or form in the next film.”

No, Bob Dylan was not invited to give out the best original song. In presenting best original song, Mick Jagger suggested that Bob Dylan — the subject of the Oscar-nominated film “A Complete Unknown” — had been the Academy’s first choice, but he turned it down. (Jagger quipped that Dylan suggested they “find someone younger,” and that indeed Jagger is younger.) But “that was Mick Jagger joke,” Mills said. “I think everybody knows, if you’ve ever been to a Rolling Stones show or seen on TV, Mick Jagger has an incredible sense of humor. But Mick was always the first choice. It was like, ‘the ask is out to Mick Jagger. He’ll never do it.’ And he did! This was his first time at the Oscars, if you can believe it.”

The last-minute death of Gene Hackman caused a scramble over the weekend. “That morning, we were all texting about what we were going to do for Gene, The one thing we knew immediately was we can get him in the montage. But it was really important that we figure out what is the right sort of grace note we can do for for Gene. The show was already running long, but it was really important. I have to really give a special shout out to [Oscars talent producer] Taryn Hurd who every year would say, ‘we gotta see if we can get Gene to present this picture.’ There was always a conversation. It was never the right time. So she took the loss hard, and it was important for her to get the right person to pay tribute, and fortunately, Morgan Freeman flew in for this.”

The In Memoriam package had been locked, but they made a rare exception to fit Hackman in. “There is a way to go back in last minute. Sometimes it’s harder than others. There was enough time there. I remember when Bill Paxton passed away the day of the show that was hard. Here, it was nice that we were able to get him in and have him close out the montage.”

The decision to go with a solemn In Memoriam music number was meant to help contrast the Oscars vs. other awards shows. Instead of a singer performing during the In Memoriam tribute, the decision to instead have a choir singing along as the orchestra performed Mozart’s “Requiem in D Minor.”

“It is from an Oscar winner, ‘Amadeus,’” Mills said. “But I think it was, when you look at us and falling on the heels of the Grammys, where you will get an incredible singer. We’ve had great singers in the past, but the Grammys does that so well. I do think our superpower is, whether it’s film scores, orchestral music to those scenes where you do then do the sound ups of the actors, that’s the Oscars. I will say TCM also does a master class with the In Memoriam as well. I think that it is more about making it about film.”

There was a conscious decision to put the orchestra back on the Oscars, front and center this year, above the stage. “The look of the show felt sort of both brand new and timeless,” Mills said. “That’s Raj and Katy. One of their their hallmarks is that look of the show and showmanship. This was a very conscious decision by them.”

The producers knew they better let Adrien Briody speak, even though the show was already going long. As Brody gave his lengthy acceptance speech, the music finally started playing for him to wrap it up. At that moment, Brody wasn’t having it: “I’m wrapping up, please turn the music off,” Brody said. “I’ve done this before. Thank you. It’s not my first rodeo, but I will will be brief.”

“What are you gonna do?” Mills said. “Maybe if he kept his gum in his mouth, he would have not given such a long speech. You can’t fault Adrien Brody, he is an incredible artist. I do think the speech was so long that it’s actually kind of hard to remember what his points were. Everyone is told before the show, be succinct, be memorable. And that is, yes, we’re trying to keep the show moving, but it’s also going to help you, because that’s what you’ll remember about the speech. And right now, what I remember is Adrian Brody saying, ‘This isn’t my first rodeo. Don’t play me off.’ Was everybody doing a little bit of hand wringing, because the show was already on? Sure, absolutely, but at that point, during at the end of the night, I think it shouldn’t take away from what certainly one of the great for me movie going experiences of the year.”

Martin Scorsese was quickly on board O’Brien’s “CinemaStreams” parody — and sent his video in by phone. One of the hit bits of the night was O’Brien’s gag new enterprise “CinemaStreams” — essentially marketing movie theaters to kids used to only streaming their films. Among his spokespeople: Martin Scorsese. Scorsese sent that joke video after reading the script and loving the idea.

Ben Stiller choreographed his on-stage pratfall. As an actor, Ben Stiller is no stranger to physical humor. So he was clearly up to the task to poke a little fun at production design, the award he was tasked with handing out. As he tried to present the nominees, the platform he was on would go up and down — jokingly proving his point, that production design and its operation is critical to most productions.

“He rehearsed it on Saturday and pretty much nailed it,” Mills said. “Ben is somebody, when you talk to other producers or people who worked on other shows, of them, he goes in with an idea in mind. I think he had this in mind and just pretty much choreographed it. It was actually pretty easy for him, once he got to rehearsal, to just nail that.”

As the weeks wore on and we moved further away from the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires, there were many discussions among the producers on how much to reference it. By the time of the Oscars, the general consensus was that people were exhausted from thinking and talking about the tragedy — which is why the opening wasn’t overlong, and didn’t actually reference the fires.

Instead, it focused on film clips. Kapoor and Mullan were in charge of that opening tribute to Los Angeles and Hollywood, which included moments from “The Fast and the Furious,” “Rocky III,” “White Men Can’t Jump,” “Barbie,” “La Bamba,” “Chinatown,” “Iron Man 2,” “La La Land,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” “The Long Goodbye,” “L.A. Story,” “Straight Outta Compton” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”

“I, myself, personally, was elated in rehearsal when I saw Rocky and Apollo running on the beach in Rocky III,” Mills said. “That was very exciting. But I think it’s not just the movies, but really the shots they picked were so fantastic and so thoughtful. You know what shot of ‘Chinatown’ you can use of Jack Nicholson, or the shot for ‘The Long Goodbye,’ and I thought everything they did was perfect and real, especially when you’re a long time resident of LA. After what we’ve been through the first couple months of the year, it was really great. That should just live on a loop when you come to Los Angeles.”

That also included the decision on save O’Brien’s reference about the fires to later in his monologue, and to add humor to the firefighters’ appearance. Ultimately the decision was for O’Brien to seriously reference the fires late in his monologue, rather than at the top. And later, not only did O’Brien pay tribute to the fire department first responders who fought the blazes in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, but he gave three of them some jokes to recite. Those jokes, you can imagine, went through several iterations before landing on what was recited by the three fire officials.

John Lithgow was quickly game to participate with his “dour” face to make the point that speeches shouldn’t go long. “That’s the beauty of having Conan, who has 30 years of deep celebrity relationships,” Mills said. “It was fascinating seeing the the presenters backstage when they would see Conan, and all these memories came back of when they would either sit with him or be on the show. He is universally beloved, very similar to Jimmy. So of course, it’s very easy then to get John Lithgow. And you know, Conan’s producers, Jeff Ross is so great. And I think just the talent knows they’re in good hands.”

There is no Amazon exec named Steven Belsky. It was really a “Conan” writer. As referenced in O’Brien’s monologue, “new James Bond” Steven Belsky, the senior VP of global affairs for Amazon, is not a real person at all. That’s a photo of writer and comedian Dan Cronin.

Adam Sandler asked to stick around after his Oscars bit — but it’s believed he stayed in his comfy outfit. Sandler got to be the most comfortable of anyone in the Dolby Theatre, as he sat in a sweatshirt and shorts — much to the tongue-in-cheek chagrin of O’Brien. Although it seemed like Sandler just there for that bit, insiders said he said he wanted seats to stay — although it’s unclear how long he did stick around. “I don’t think he was kidding about that basketball game,” Mills said.

Nick Offerman was O’Brien’s choice to take over as announcer for the Oscars this year, just as last year’s announcer, David Alan Grier, was Kimmel’s selection. “Jimmy was really the one who instituted this idea last year, of having somebody who is kind of funny doing this,” Mills said. “Although I hadn’t realized, I guess the first announcer at the Oscars was Ronald Reagan, which I just learned. Maybe next year we’ll get George W Bush. But we knew Conan woulddefinitely have an idea about who he wants, and his thought was Nick will be great at this. And obviously he was.”