oscars

Producers Who Brought Us Bad Oscars Are Definitely Not Returning

Neil Patrick Harris hosts the 2015 Oscars. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

After hinting at their departure earlier this month, Oscars producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron told Deadline they’re officially done with the awards show. The producers have finished out the end of a three-year contract with the Oscars and embarked on numerous other projects. “Frankly, before the Oscars this year were even broadcast, we were questioning whether or not, if we were ever asked, whether we wanted to do it again, and we had long talked about it, and also had casual discussions with [President] Cheryl [Boone Isaacs] and [CEO] Dawn [Hudson] about it way back when, and the past couple of years have been incredible, but at the same time, we’ve also put a lot of projects on hold, and they haven’t been getting our full attention,” Meron said.

Zadan and Meron will reportedly turn their attention to developing Broadway shows, a third live musical for TV (maybe The Music Man?), and a movie-musical version of Pippin.

After the latest Oscars ceremony saw ratings drop 16 percent from 2014’s and received no dearth of criticism, Zadan and Meron brushed it off (without blaming anyone in particular). “You have regrets about every show. I think that is because it’s an unproducible show. It’s a show that is so enormous, that has so many elements to it, that has so many stars that you’re dealing with and so many aspects to it, that you’re barely about to get it up and running on stage by the time you’re telecast,” Zadan added.

The producers didn’t rule out doing the Oscars again, sometime down the line. In the meantime, they’ve left us with that tweet about keeping their innovations. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Oscars Producers Definitely Not Returning