The blessedly still-alive James Franco is in everything these days—soap operas, performance-art projects, the Middle Ages, crevasses—so it stands to reason that the actor/novelist/student/singer of songs, probably, would be asked to host this year’s Academy Awards, honoring the industry that a cabal comprised of Franco, Ryan Reynolds, and Guillermo del Toro is almost single-handedly keeping afloat. Deadline reports that Franco has been offered the job of co-host alongside Anne Hathaway, a similar triple-threat thanks to her skills with acting, singing, and the Bowie knife.
What’s odd about the decision is that Franco may be up for an Oscar nomination himself, thanks to his performance in 127 Hours, and some are also saying the same thing about Hathaway’s performance in Love And Other Drugs (though probably just to be nice). They’re also neither 60 years old nor comedians, instead hearkening back to the precedent set in the ‘70s, when actors like Burt Reynolds and David Niven would tag-team the ceremony. (Of course, no one’s expecting the kind of en fuego chemistry that Niven and Reynolds had. Franco and Hathaway are a cute couple, but not that cute.)