ABC/Brett Ratner
Hugh Jackman, whose box-office disappointment Australia has thus far been ignored by award-giving groups, will host the Oscar 2009 ceremony on February 22.
As per Brook Barnes in the New York Times, Oscar telecast's producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon "said they hoped to achieve multiple goals with the casting of Mr. Jackman. First, there is a desire to put more movie in the annual movie business extravaganza. Jon Stewart and Ellen DeGeneres, recent hosts, are both primarily known as television stars." Mark and Condon also decided to keep their distance from stand-up comedians.
"We are trying to get away from this late-night talk show rut," Mark told the Times. "It seemed to us that we needed to turn a corner and get somebody who is, imagine that, a movie star."
Among the Sydney-born actor's screen credits are The Prestige, The Fountain, Van Helsing, Kate & Leopold, and X-Men and its sequels.
Barnes adds that "Mr. Jackman’s selection is also an attempt to play to the audience at home, which has been shrinking in recent years. Viewers of the ceremony are overwhelmingly female — the Oscars are known in the advertising world as the Super Bowl for women — and producers clearly expect Mr. Jackman to turn out that demographic in droves."
In the United States, the Oscarcast will be televised by ABC.