Category: Film
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The Oscars will leave TV — and may never come back
A seismic shift is coming for Hollywood’s biggest awards show.
Following a tough decade that has seen the program lose more than 40% of its audience, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has agreed to a multiyear deal that will take it off television airwaves.
In 2021, viewership sank to less than a third of the 2016 audience, with just 10.4 million viewers.
California streaming
Starting in 2029, the 101st Oscars will air in an online format as part of an exclusive deal with YouTube for the global rights to the broadcast. The deal, which runs through 2033, includes the rights to cover the red carpet, behind the scenes, and the Governors Ball.
As reported by Variety, the awards show will leave ABC — where it has been for decades — and will become available on YouTube around the world and to YouTube subscribers in the United States.
Will the show leave extended commercial breaks behind as well? Unlikely. Inside sources revealed to Variety that ads will be a part of the broadcast, and the intent behind the shift was actually to capitalize on YouTube’s captioning and audio translation features.
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Photo by Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage
Falling stars
While the awards telecast has gained some of its viewership back in the last few years, the numbers are still much smaller than they were when President Trump took office the first time.
In 2016, the Oscars saw approximately 34.4 million viewers. That number dropped steadily to 23.6 million by 2020, until a massive free fall in 2021. That year, viewership sank to less than a third of the 2016 audience, with just 10.4 million viewers.
Viewership has climbed back up since and showed decent growth through 2024, when it had 19.5 million viewers. However, the numbers largely stagnated for 2025 with 19.7 million, which is about 57% of what viewership was in 2016.
Still it seems the program will never again reach the peaks it had as recently as 2010, when it garnered over 41 million sets of eyeballs.
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Photo by Araya Doheny/Getty Images for YouTube
Global services
Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Lynette Howell Taylor released a joint statement calling the new deal a “multifaceted global partnership with YouTube” that will reach “the largest worldwide audience possible.”
They added, “This collaboration will leverage YouTube’s vast reach and infuse the Oscars and other Academy programming with innovative opportunities for engagement while honoring our legacy. We will be able to celebrate cinema, inspire new generations of filmmakers, and provide access to our film history on an unprecedented global scale.”
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan labeled the Oscars “one of our essential cultural institutions, honoring excellence in storytelling and artistry.”
Guillermo del Toro stops awards show music to drop ‘F**k AI’ bomb
Three-time Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro had strong words about using humans in the production of his latest film.
Del Toro, a writer and director behind films like “Pacific Rim,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and “The Hobbit” movies, was honored with a tribute award recently at the 2025 Gotham Film Awards.
‘Every single frame of this film that was willfully made by humans for humans.’
Del Toro accepted the award alongside actors Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi for their work on the 2025 film “Frankenstein.”
Del Toro made several emotional comments dating back to when he first read the book that inspired his movie at age 11, before Isaac attempted to turn the acceptance speech into one about diversity and immigration.
“I am proud to be standing here tonight. … Immigrants, baby. We get the job done,” Isaac exclaimed. He is Guatemalan, Elordi is Australian, and del Toro is Mexican.
Elordi then spoke, but neither he nor del Toro added to Isaac’s remarks. Soon, music started to play, and the production looked to the next award. That was until del Toro interrupted, deciding that he wanted to add opinionated remarks of his own.
“No, no, no, wait!” del Toro interrupted. “I would like to tell to the rest of our extraordinary cast and our crew that the artistry of all of them shines on every single frame of this film that was willfully made by humans for humans.”
“The designers, builders, makeup, wardrobe team, cinematographers, composers, editors,” he continued. “This tribute belongs to all of them. And I would like to extend our gratitude and say —” del Toro then paused, seemingly wondering if he should continue.
“F**k AI,” he added with a smile.
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During his acceptance speech, del Toro spoke on the inspiration he drew from Mary Shelley, the original author of “Frankenstein.”
“Mary Shelley, who made the book her biography, she was 18 years old when she wrote the book and posed the urgent questions: Who am I? What am I? Where did I come from? And where am I going?” del Toro explained. “She presented them with such urgency that they are alive 200 years later through this incredible parable that shaped my life since I first read it in childhood at age 11.”
Much of del Toro’s appeal comes from his ability to explore complex emotional topics from a unique viewpoints, and those unique thoughts typically come across whenever he is given the chance to speak. Del Toro told the award-show audience that even at a young age, he knew he “did not belong in the world the way my parents, the way the world expected me to fit.”
“My place was in a faraway land inhabited only by monsters and misfits.”
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This outlook definitely falls in line with his recent work, including when he appeared in the recent video game series Death Stranding.
Working alongside iconic game developer Hideo Kojima, del Toro delivered storylines about life, death, and emotional connection, but this time as an actor.
Speaking on the games, del Toro said he believes in the importance of “paradoxical creation” and said it is “essential to art.”
The beauty of the game, he added, was that Kojima had both “the weirdest mind and the most wholesome mind,” which shaped his storytelling.
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Macaulay Culkin just revealed his secret plot for another ‘Home Alone’ movie
Beloved former child star Macaulay Culkin revealed he has an “elevator pitch” idea about another possible “Home Alone” movie.
Culkin is currently making the rounds on his “A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin” tour and revealed during a recent stop that — unlike “Home Alone” director Chris Columbus — he is not opposed to doing a sequel to the Christmas movie.
‘I’m not completely allergic to it, the right thing.’
Culkin admitted he “wouldn’t be completely allergic” to reprising his role as Kevin McCallister, Variety reported, but said any form of a sequel would “have to be just right.”
At that point, the 45-year-old divulged he “kind of had this idea” on how a new movie could play out.
Like father, like son?
“I’m either a widower or a divorcee. I’m raising a kid and all that stuff. I’m working really hard, and I’m not really paying enough attention, and the kid is kind of getting miffed at me, and then I get locked out. [Kevin’s son] won’t let me in … and he’s the one setting traps for me,” the actor explained.
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(Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The star said that the iconic “Home Alone” house would be “some sort of metaphor for” the relationship between him and his son, with his character trying to “get let back into son’s heart.”
He added, “That’s the closest elevator pitch that I have. I’m not completely allergic to it, the right thing.”
Keep the change
The comments are the latest sign that the once publicity-shy Culkin has embraced his child-star past.
In 2018, Culkin became Kevin for a Google Assistant ad, using the app to make purchases and manage the thermostat in his house.
Culkin also appeared in a series of videos for YouTube channel Cinemassacre around that same time, playing and reviewing the video games that featured his on-screen characters.
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‘That thing I did’
In 2025, Culkin said that he has been showing his own children his old movies recently and that he was no longer bothered by the idea that his films are still popular.
“I think for a while, you know, when you’re a teenager and [in] your 20s and stuff like that, it’s like, ‘Ah, just they keep on talking about that thing I did.’ Now, it’s like, ‘Oh! They’re still talking about that thing I did.’ … I enjoy my legacy,” he told Yahoo Entertainment.
For Christmas season 2025, Culkin also paid homage to his “Home Alone” role in a commercial for an in-home care service.
1990’s “Home Alone” and 1992’s “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” have grossed more than $450 million over their lifespan.
“Home Alone 3,” which did not feature Culkin, grossed just $30 million.
’Trey didn’t have a car’: ‘Airplane!’ director David Zucker on humble origins of ‘South Park’ empire
The creators of “South Park” didn’t always know it would become a hit — let alone one of the longest-running shows in the history of television.
Just ask Hollywood veteran David Zucker, who hired Trey Parker and Matt Stone shortly before the duo — and the foul-mouthed kids they created — became household names.
‘They were also unsure of if “South Park” would ever work.’
Zucker — who directed seminal spoof comedy “Airplane!” along with his brother Jerry and the late Jim Abrahams — recalled that when he first met the University of Colorado grads in the mid-1990s, they were still very much struggling filmmakers.
Ride share
“They came to my office and I met with these guys, and Trey didn’t have a car,” Zucker said.
Despite their precarious finances, the duo already had a feature film under their belt — 1993’s “Cannibal! The Musical” — as well as animated short “The Spirit of Christmas,” which would soon land them a deal for “South Park.”
Impressed with their talents, Zucker hired Parker and Stone to do a video for Universal executives commemorating the studio’s recent purchase by Canadian beverage giant Seagram.
The duo turned in “Your Studio and You,” a side-splitting send-up of 1950s industrial videos crammed with cameos by the likes of Steven Spielberg, Sylvester Stallone, and Michael J. Fox.
Hedging their bets
Zucker remembered the young newcomers in 1997 when casting the leads for his longtime passion project, “BASEketball.” By then Parker and Stone had made a second film, “Orgazmo,” a comedy about a Mormon missionary (Parker) turned porn star turned superhero. With a $25 million budget and major studio backing, Zucker’s project represented a major step up.
And while the two were then deep in production on the show that would launch their careers, they assumed it would die a quick death once it aired. So they agreed to star in “BASEketball.”
“They were also unsure of if ‘South Park’ would ever work,” said Zucker. “This was a hedge against, you know, Trey having to get his car fixed.”
Upon premiering in August 1997, “South Park” was an instant hit, requiring Parker and Stone to shoot “BASEketball” while simultaneously maintaining their grueling TV schedule.
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Rookie year
While Zucker had already written a script for “BASEketball” — inspired by an actual sport he and some friends “invented on my driveway” during the 1980s — he relied on his Gen X collaborators to punch it up for the younger “South Park” fan base.
“They probably wrote about a third of it, and you know, a lot of that stuff, because I didn’t know what kind of language went on between … 20-somethings,” Zucker explained. Both the actors were in their late 20s at the time.
One of Parker and Stone’s most significant additions to the script was helping with the “psych-outs” — tasteless insults “baseketball” players hurl at an opponent in hopes of making him miss a shot.
All-star lineup
Such tactics were never used by the real-life players, whom Zucker described as “all these guys who later became, you know, heads of studios and heads of agencies” — a roster including director Peter Farrelly (“There’s Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber”), former CAA head David “Doc” O’Connor, and former Fox Television Group chair Gary Newman.
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1998: “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone star in the movie “BASEketball.” Getty Images
Zucker noted that he is emphasizing the “psych-out” element in a new “BASEketball” pitch: a reality show featuring teams of comedians playing the sport while tearing each other down.
As for his old “BASEketball” buddies, Zucker said he recently visited their office to get a 10-minute preview of their new movie, “Whitney Springs,” a live-action comedy musical starring rapper Kendrick Lamar as a black man working as a slave re-enactor at a living history museum who discovers his white girlfriend’s ancestors “owned” his ancestors.
“They showed me 10 minutes of it, and it looks great,” said Zucker.
