TV Producers of 2016 Oscars Are Selected

By MICHAEL CIEPLY SEPT. 1, 2015 New York Times

LOS ANGELES — The producers for the next Oscar ceremony will be Reginald Hudlin, a filmmaker schooled in urban comedy, and David Hill, a television producer with credits on “American Idol” and the 2011 World Series broadcast, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said on Tuesday.

The appointments for the ceremony, which is set for broadcast on Feb. 28 on ABC, followed a wide search, as the Academy reviewed candidates to replace Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who had produced three successive Academy Awards shows. The audience for the last of those shows, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris earlier this year, dropped nearly 15 percent, to around 36.6 million viewers, from 43 million in 2014.

Mr. Hudlin was a producer of “Django Unchained,” which was nominated for the best picture Oscar in 2012. He also produced the Academy’s Governors Awards ceremony last year, after working as an executive, writer, director and producer on a string of films and television shows that began with a comic short, “House Party,” and the several feature films to which it gave rise.

For weeks, Mr. Hudlin had been mentioned by Academy insiders as being high on a list of possible producers. Those included Michael Shamberg, who was an executive producer of “Django Unchained,” and Joel Gallen, who was a producer of the last Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Mr. Hill, a less expected choice, has worked with various Fox-affiliated companies in a long executive career that included a stint as chief executive of the Fox Sports Media group.

Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the Academy’s president, cited in a statement Mr. Hill’s “vast experience as a live events producer” and Mr. Hudlin’s “energy, creativity and talent as a filmmaker.”

Having accepted the producing post, Mr. Hill and Mr. Hudlin will now turn to the show’s biggest annual challenge: finding a host. Mr. Harris was widely criticized for his February performance.

Other hosting problems have included a decision by Eddie Murphy to abandon the host spot for the 2012 ceremony when the show’s producer, Brett Ratner, resigned after his public use of an anti-gay slur, and a lackluster performance by the actor James Franco for the 2011 ceremony.

Oscars: New Producers Reveal Show Plans Including Excitement & “A Little Hint Of Danger”

By Pete Hammond, September 2, 2015, Deadline

Hudlin, who did produce the Academy’s non-televised Governors Awards last November, was part of our speculation when we ran a story last month about the search for new producers after Craig Zadan and Neil Meron declined to do a fourth show in a row. But Hill, known primarily for his work at Fox, and particularly in the sports area, was more of a surprise choice that Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and CEO Dawn Hudson kept close to the vest. Hill told me it all started with a casual suggestion in Deadline’s sister publication Variety (we are both owned by PMC): “There was an article by Tim Gray ages ago that suggested the Oscars could do with a bit of a shake-up and it mentioned my name as having done a bit with sports,” Hill told me. “The next thing I know I am talking with Jimmy Gianopulos, who as you know is the chairman of 20th Century Fox (Ed note: and also a past and current Academy governor), and then the next  thing I know I get a phone call from Cheryl Boone Isaacs and Dawn Hudson who invited me for a chat to their office on a Friday at 4:30 in the afternoon. I have been around Hollywood enough to know that if you are called into a meeting at 4:30 on a Friday, it is usually with a guy you don’t want to see. I told my wife I would be home shortly, but we started talking and it went on for a while, and then had a series of conversations, and here we are.”

It was Boone Isaacs who suggested he meet with Hudlin after Hill expressed concern about his lack of knowledge of the movie business. “I have done six Super Bowls, but my knowledge of film you could probably write on the back of a stamp,” he said. “Cheryl suggested I get together with Reggie Hudlin. We soon discovered we had the exact same sense of humor. He’s far better educated than me. He went to Harvard and kind of grew up with the Harvard Lampoon guys. He knows film inside and out. I think we are going to make a pretty formidable team.  With his knowledge of film and understanding of the art, and my knowledge of television, I think we have a pretty good shot of making this thing pretty good.”

For his part, Hudlin says they were immediately sympatico. “We met and it was like a house afire. We talked about the challenges of the show, and before we could talk ourselves out of doing it altogether, we discussed solutions,” Hudlin said. “He is like me. He likes challenging orthodoxy. We are the granddaddy of  awards shows, yes, but  you can’t let yourself be atrophied. You have to stay flexible. The Oscar show is a celebration of where our cinematic culture is, so you have to stay where the culture is now. I love movies, every kind of movie, and that is what we want to showcase in this year’s show.”

Every year there is criticism aimed at the show that no one cares about most of the below-the-line crafts categories, but the Academy insists that all 24 categories be presented on the telecast. That is not negotiable, although producers in the past have tried — and failed — to get around that rule. Both Hill and Hudlin have discussed how to handle this aspect of Oscarcast and agree it is important to get the audience watching at home invested. “The thing I have always found disconcerting, ” said Hill, “and I don’t know if there is a solution, is the order of the awards because they just seem to come out of nowhere, and there’s no context.  It is just a series of non-sequitors. What Reggie and I are looking at  is trying to mesh them together so that you understand, for example, the difference between sound mixing and sound editing…You try to explain how difficult and creative it is to do it so you care about the people doing it. Then when they get the award, it is someone you feel this connection with, this empathy, because you understand the creative process.”

Of course, any dedicated student of the Oscars (that would be me) can tell you that trying to explain the various craft categories isn’t really a new idea. When Bill Condon and Laurence Mark produced the revolutionary 81st Oscar show they tried to give context to the entire filmmaking process by presenting awards in a certain kind of order beginning with writers and going from there. Stars like Will Smith came on to explain technical aspects of various crafts before presenting the awards. It sounds like Hill and Hudlin may be on the same wavelength in tackling that part of the show. It is a smart move because much of the backlash from within the Academy that I have heard recently has been that the show is not enough about the movies. But will it just make an already long show longer? Hudlin looks at it philosophically.

“Length is measured in two ways. One is actual time elapsed. We certainly want to be incredibly disciplined about not being excessive or abusive about the audience’s time,” he said. “But the biggest way we measure time is your engagement. If you’re not having fun, if you’re not emotionally engaged, if you’re not being entertained, five minutes feels like an hour.” He added: “The bigger issue is making sure the audience feels excitement and they’re having fun for every category, not just the movie stars, but the incredible artists who work behind the scenes as well. We want people to care about all the categories.”

Hudlin says they are still in the “brainstorming” phase of figuring it all out, and Hill says they have to wait to see what the actual nominees will be  before creating the “tenor” of the show. But both promise to try and shake things up. “I think the most important question is ‘Why is this done this way?’ You constantly have to ask ‘why?’, and I think that’s a real strength of David’s,” Hudlin said. “He is willing to challenge anything, which is my temperament as well. I think our process will lead to exciting and invigorating outcomes.”

As for the host — oh yes, they have definitely been chewing on that one. “We want  the viewer to have a sense of excitement and a little hint of danger. I think those are good qualities to have in a host,” said Hudlin. “It is a high-wire act obviously and a lot of (potential hosts) are ‘I’m not ready for that kind of challenge.’ But we think there is an exciting  list of possibilities that could kill it.”

I personally hope they will listen to my suggestion made in that article last month speculating on this Oscar process: Past host Steve Martin teamed with Martin Short would be killer. And they already have an act they have been taking around the country this summer. Just my two cents, guys. Hill says it is tricky because you have to keep tradition as well as the future balanced, but have your feet “firmly in the present” as far as a host goes. “What we are sitting around talking about is does a TV guy work? Does it have to be a film guy? Do we need standup?” Hill asks while pointing out it is going to be hard for anyone to follow a couple of certain legends who hosted the show many times. “I think the problem lies in the two legendary hosts who kind of signify what the Oscars were — and are — Bob Hope and Johnny Carson. You had two super-huge iconic figures who made it look so easy, ” he said before going on to recite his favorite Bob Hope Oscar jokes. Hill has clearly been studying up on his Oscar history, although oddly there was no mention of eight-time host Billy Crystal, who should probably be placed in that same Oscar M.C. league. Hudlin’s line about “a little hint of danger” in a host could point to one of his own past colleagues, the return of Chris Rock.

As for his vast experience in doing live TV, and especially sports, I asked Hill if we can expect anything he might have done in that area that could make the Oscar show better. “Well I am certainly not going to put a first-down yard marker in the middle of the stage or put the score in the corner (the latter is actually not a bad idea). Nor will I have presenters wearing umpire outfits. I have no idea,” he said. “The way I produce sports is the way I produce American Idol (he did the past two seasons), which is the way I produce election coverage, which is the way I produced comedy. It’s all television. It’s the way you cut it, the way you show your hosts, the way you get your points over. The key thing I will be doing is the thing I always wanted to do with Fox Sports and that is to sugarcoat the education pill. This is one of the things I was so proud about with Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long and Jimmy Johnson on the NFL pregame show. They were able to explain difficult concepts of the way football is played, but to make it simple and make it fun. I believe that has gone a long way to increasing American’s knowledge of what goes on in football, and if I can use the same philosophy with the Oscars I think we will go a long way in achieving that goal.”

It was fun to talk with both because the sense of excitement they feel at this early point gives me hope for the 88th Oscar show. Let’s hope they remain enthusiastic throughout the grueling, sometimes thankless process of doing this kind of mammoth undertaking. Any trepidation about taking it on? “All my life I am a person who likes to jump into the deep end of the pool,” said Hudlin. “And that little bit of fear, that’s good for you. That gives you extra fuel, that extra kick to get where you need to be. To quote the late, great Bernie Mac, ‘I ain’t scared of you.’ I say let’s go.”

Milestone Media Relaunches, Plans New Comics and More

from The Hollywood Reporter: January 21, 2015
by Graeme McMillan

The company behind DC’s ‘Static Shock’ will work with “different publishers as well as other media companies” in future

An important piece of the 1990s comic book landscape is set to return this year, with the news that Milestone Media — the studio founded by Reginald Hudlin, Derek Dingle, Denys Cowan and the late Dwayne McDuffie — is being relaunched with an eye to working with “a wide variety of companies,” including those outside the comic book industry.

While mainstream superhero comics publishers like Marvel and DC have increased the amount of diversity visible in their comics recently, with Marvel’s Ms. Marvel and All-New Captain America being the most high-profile examples, the new Milestone Media — referred to by Hudlin as “Milestone Media 2.0” in an interview with the Washington Post — will strive to increase the diversity of voices behind the characters.

“We’ve never just done black characters just to do black characters. It’s always come from a specific point of view, which is what made our books work,” Cowan told the Post. “What we also didn’t do, which is the trend now, is [to] have characters that are, not blackface, but they’re the black versions of the already established white characters — as if it gives legitimacy to these black characters in some kind of way — [that] these characters are legitimate because now there’s a black Captain America. Having been a creator of these characters and a consumer, I always looked at it like, ‘Well, geez, couldn’t you give me an original character?’”

In its original incarnation, Milestone offered only original characters, published in partnership with DC Entertainment. Of those characters — which included Icon, Hardware, Xombi and one of the first openly-LGBT partnerships in mainstream comic books with Shadow Cabinet’s Donner and Blitzen — the most famous is undoubtedly Static, a teenager with electricity powers who has featured in three solo comic book series from DC as well as Static Shock, a Warner Bros.-produced animated series that ran for four seasons on the WB network. (An digital series featuring the character was announced as being in development by Warners last year.)

The first run of Milestone titles, which ran from 1993 through 1997, was also notable for introducing a number of new creators to comics who would later become known for DC and Marvel work, including John Paul Leon, J.H. Williams and John Rozum. Derek Dingle said that he considers the new Milestone, like the original version, “an opportunity to mine some [new] talent,” with the company looking “to find a new group of creators who are knowledgeable and grew up with digital [formats].”

SDCC Interview: Hudlin, Cowan Say Christopher Priest Is Part Of Milestone 2.0

From Comic Book Resources, July 10, 2015
Jonah Weiland, Executive Producer/Publisher

Though acclaimed writer Christopher Priest was heavily involved in the early development of the Milestone Universe, by the time the first issue bearing the iconic “M” logo — which Priest designed — was published in 1993, he was no longer a part of the company.

So when Milestone 2.0 was announced in early 2015, one of the questions on many peoples minds was whether Priest would be involved in the company’s resurrection.

While taping an interview with CBR TV at Comic-Con International, Milestone co-founders Denys Cowan and Reginald Hudlin gave us the definitive answer.

“We love Christopher Priest,” Cowan stated when asked if the outspoken writer was a part of the current Milestone Media rebirth.

“I’m just gonna say it,” added Reginald Hudlin. “So the drive from L.A. to San Diego is like three and a half hours long. I pretty much spent the entire trip talking to Christopher Priest as we were breaking a story. So then I got down here, I go to Denys, ‘Let me tell you what we’ve been working on.'”

“Except it was at 1 o’clock in the morning,” Cowan continued. “So we’re speaking for an hour at 1 o’clock in the morning. He’s telling me this story. It’s so good we stayed on the phone for an hour just talking about that like, ‘Dude. And then what happens? And then what happens? And then what happens?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, — I have to draw this right now.'”

“It’s so good, it’s so much fun,” said Hudlin. “So then last night I was up, everybody was asleep, I’m like ‘OK,’ because he sent me notes. So I got like four different e-mails this morning. I’m like, ‘Aaaaaaah!'”

“To answer the question, yes,” Cowan said.

“And Christopher Priest, who we love, who we’ve always loved and we’re so happy to be working with him again, he was part of the original team,” Hudlin added.

“He was part of the original Milestone. That fifth Beatle that never really gets recognition,” said Cowan.

“But there’s been so many incredible high-level writers and artists who’ve been like, ‘What?! Milestone’s back? I’m in! When? Where?’,” said Hudlin. “It’s been incredible. The biggest names in the business are like, ‘We are down. We wanna be in.’ We’re super excited about the amount of firepower we’re gonna bring.”