2018 Academy Awards Host Betting Odds
–Jimmy Kimmel received mostly positive reviews for his Academy Awards hosting performance.
–He got special props for his deft handling of the ‘Best Picture’ snafu at the end of the show.
–The relatively low pay scale for the gig means he might not want to come back for an encore.
I have to admit it–I was impressed and pleasantly surprised by Jimmy Kimmel’s turn as host of the Academy Awards. After setting a line for ‘Number of times Kimmel would laugh at his own jokes‘ he made me look like the foolish one by absolutely nailing his performance. Kimmel was funny, quick witted, a capable host and didn’t come off as the smarmy, overly amused with himself twerp that late night rival Jimmy Fallon does. I’ve always liked Kimmel–a Las Vegas product and graduate of UNLV–since his days as ‘Jimmy the Sports Guy’ on Los Angeles’ KROQ-FM radio station. It was there he met longtime running mate Adam Carolla and his career began to gain traction. He’s now a huge late night TV star and stands out as one of the best in a packed field. I just wasn’t sure how he’d handle the tough gig of hosting the Academy Awards.
In a good year, hosting the Academy Awards is a thankless job. A host has to find the perfect balance between several extremes. He (or she) has to be edgy, irreverent and funny without being overly controversial and offensive. He has to genuflect to the self importance of ‘The Academy’ and the Hollywood power players to some degree without coming off as obsequious. In most years, there’s at least some faction that has a gripe with the host. There are a few exceptions–like the great Johnny Carson–but most hosts at least leave some portion of the demographic unhappy.
JIMMY KIMMEL NAILS IT AS ACADEMY AWARD HOST
With the exception of Donald Trump hardcores (who aren’t the Academy’s demographic anyway) and a newspaper article I saw from Bangladesh (also not a big ‘demo’ for the Academy) Kimmel has been getting anywhere from positive to rave reviews of his Academy Awards hosting debut. He had the perfect balance of all of the components of an excellent host and even received bonus points for the way he handled the now infamous ‘Best Picture’ announcement screw up at the end of the show. There are a few of his peers convinced that the entire ‘wrong envelope’ fiasco was a ‘work’ set up by Kimmel himself but that’s highly unlikely given the high profile setting. Matt Damon kept the ersatz ‘showbiz feud’ between himself and Kimmel going by blaming his ‘adversary’ for the situation. For his part, Kimmel has done a good job deflecting blame from the presenters–79 year old Warren Beatty and 76 year old Faye Dunaway–and the ‘party line’ is that it was a behind the scenes issue with most of the finger pointing in the direction of the accountants that provide the event with a veneer of legitimacy.
The way things are shaking out from the 2017 Academy Awards there’s every reason to think that Kimmel has the hosting gig for 2018 if he wants it. But does he want it? On one hand, it pays next to nothing by Hollywood standards ($15,000 US) and as we noted above it’s a thankless, stressful job with plenty of ‘downside risk’. Based on his comments since the end of Academy Awards show Kimmel sounds relieved that it’s over. He’s already getting heat for ‘stealing’ or ‘recycling’ a joke from Tina Fey and Amy Poehler which is highly doubtful and most likely a case of ‘sour grapes’. You can say what you want about Kimmel and his longtime cohort Adam Carolla but they’ve never had a problem coming up with funny jokes and concepts in abundance. Besides, Fey and Poehler aren’t exactly Bill Hicks and George Carlin. They’ve made a career out of successfully picking low hanging comedic fruit and this makes it inevitable that they’ll find similarities between their ‘material’ and that of other comedians.
On the other hand, Kimmel might want to host the Academy Awards again for the same reason that Johnny Carson did–because he can. There are few, if any, more high profile gigs for someone in Kimmel’s shoes. More important than the actual number of eyeballs that watch the show is the fact that he’s hosting the event for a roomful of the most powerful people in the entertainment industry. Even with Kimmel’s solid position in the Hollywood pecking order it’s a rare opportunity to ply his trade in front of a ‘captive audience’ of ‘A listers’. It’s a shortcut that could take him from ‘popular late night TV host’ to ‘household name’ within a few years. Besides, no matter what they say publicly there’s not a late night TV host that wouldn’t love to trod the same path as the iconic Johnny Carson.
We’re of the opinion that the 2018 Academy Award hosting gig is Kimmel’s if he wants it which is why we’ve made him the favorite on the following list of odds. If he doesn’t, there are plenty of other potential hosts of varying degrees of ability that would be happy to take his place.
ODDS TO HOST THE 2018 ACADEMY AWARDS
Jimmy Kimmel: +250
Chris Rock: +750
Jimmy Fallon: +950
Ellen Degeneres: +950
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson: +950
Neil Patrick Harris: +1150
John Oliver: +1500
Tina Fey: +1750
Amy Poehler: +2100
Will Ferrell: +2100
Vince Vaughn: +2250
James Corden: +2500
Hugh Jackman: +2500
Samantha Bee: +2500
Owen Wilson: +2500
Morgan Freeman: +2500
Kevin Spacey: +2500
Kevin Hart: +2750
Samuel L. Jackson: +2750
Seth Rogan: +2750
Ben Stiller: +2750
Amy Schumer: +3500
Aziz Ansari: +3500
Nicole Kidman: +3500
Ashton Kutcher: +3500
Chris Hemsworth: +3500
Sam Worthington: +3500
Liam Hemsworth: +4500
Hugo Weaving: +4500
Eric Bana: +4500
Whoopi Goldberg: +4500
Sasha Baron Cohen: +5000
Charlie Sheen: +5000
Bill Maher: +5000
Jim Norton: +7500
Daniel Tosh: +7500
Rick & Morty/Justin Roiland & Dan Harmon: +7500
OJ Simpson: +9900
Donald Trump: +15000
Any other host(s): +2500