Oscars Producers Reveal Fab Five Casting Tribute, Extended In Memoriam

Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan answer the call.

The two showrunners joke that they’re just eating at their desks. It’s not like they have anything else going on — except planning and preparing for the second-largest live event in the world next to the Super Bowl: the Oscars. After all, the Academy Awards, now celebrating their 98th year, are the Super Bowl for movies.

Once we get down to business, the duo shares how this year the work feels particularly significant. The Oscars arrive at a moment when the industry is processing grief, celebrating a genuinely competitive field of films and welcoming back a host, Conan O’Brien, who has had months to dream something up. That combination, Kapoor and Mullan suggest, is what great television is made of.

One of the perennial debates for any Oscars broadcast is how to handle the nominees and keep the runtime under three and a half hours. Do you let the presenters speak directly to the people sitting in the room — what awards prognosticators call “the Fab Five” — or do you roll out the film clips that made those nominations possible in the first place?

This year, the answer is both, or as close to both as time permits. The producers looked at the performances, cut a clip package and found it hit them hard. “We’re like, oh — it just hit us how great those performances were,” Mullan says. The clips will be there.

There is one notable exception to the clip format: the casting category, making its first-ever appearance in the ceremony. For that, the producers have assembled five presenters — better known as “the Fab Five” — with distinct personal connections to the nominated casting directors, each illuminating a different artisan and what, exactly, the job entails.

“We thought we really needed to tell a story,” Kapoor says. “Casting is so multifaceted and complex. We need to make people understand the importance of casting directors’ contributions to film.”

On the question of musical performances, this year’s show narrows its focus to two: one from the record-breaking vampire drama “Sinners” and one from “K-Pop: Demon Hunters,” the animated Netflix phenomenon that reached audiences around the world.

“It was not just about shining a spotlight on a song,” Kapoor explains. “It was about shining a spotlight on two movies that had a lot of impact around the world. We’ve collaborated with the directing teams from both films, and it’s a bigger story — celebrating animation, celebrating score, celebrating song, even celebrating visuals.”

When pressed, he teases the number of performers involved with evident satisfaction. Both, he promises, will be spectacles.

Not everything this year is about levity. Cinema lost an extraordinary number of its defining voices in the past 12 months — legends like Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton and Diane Ladd, among others — and both producers acknowledge that the In Memoriam segment will carry a gravity that has consumed significant emotional real estate in their planning.

“We’ve had an incredibly tough year of losses,” Mullan says. “So many cinema titans have passed away, and there are so many people who care so deeply for a lot of the people we’ll be tributing and honoring. That has taken a lot of conversation, a lot of thought, and will continue right up into the show.”

The decision has been made to extend the segment, to take more time and let each moment breathe. But length alone doesn’t resolve the challenge. The architecture of In Memoriam, Kapoor explains, is deceptively intricate.

“It’s everything from graphic design to titles to placement, because it all matters,” he says. “Who follows who, where those beats happen — it’s very nuanced. The team that puts together the film is almost working all the way up to the show because there are so many changes and revisions. It’s a chance for people to say goodbye. It’s a chance for them to see some of their favorite people one more time, and it’s a memory. We don’t take it lightly.”

The Oscars are about tradition and shaking things up.

The producers tease that they are excited about a 15-year reunion that will surely generate buzz. As Variety exclusively reported, that appears to be a reunion of the cast of “Bridesmaids” (2011), featuring Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy and best actress nominee Rose Byrne (“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”).

With more to be announced.

And then there is O’Brien, returning to the emcee role after his well-reviewed debut as host.

“He has had months of preparation,” Kapoor expresses. “The ideas are even bigger and better. We just got through a production meeting walking through the entire show and so much of Conan’s potential material. There are some great cameos that are planned. He’s so innovative and creative that we’ve just settled into this beautiful rhythm.”

Mullan adds that starting early has been a genuine privilege. In previous years, she notes, producers came on board much later in the cycle. This time, the team has had the luxury of pressure-testing ideas, and it shows. “I really hope that’s reflected,” she says, “and that it makes for a more entertaining show.”

The most energizing element heading into this year’s broadcast is one the producers can’t manufacture, and that is, genuine uncertainty. By most accounts, the race for the major prizes is wide open, even in best picture with “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” vying for the multiple categories, and that changes everything about how a show feels.

“It’s the best kind of show,” Mullan says. “We want everybody on the edge of their seat because they are invested in what the results are.”

The category order, the placement of presenters, the momentum built across three-plus hours — all of it is engineered to honor that openness, to let the competitive tension breathe rather than dissipate.

“This year feels like a horse race,” Kapoor agrees. “Anybody can come out on top.”

And just for added clarification — and because of the 2021 ceremony debacle — Variety simply asks: “Is best picture last?”

The duo smirks before Kapoor says, “Yes. We’re not messing with that.”