On the heels of widespread praise for Conan O’Brien‘s work hosting The 97th Academy Awards Sunday night, ABC’s executive in charge of The Oscars all but officially offered O’Brien a return engagement while speaking with reporters Monday morning.
“Conan absolutely nailed it,” Rob Mills, EVP of unscripted and alternative entertainment for Walt Disney TV, told Variety.
“It was this sense memory of 30 years of not only him in late night, but when he would host the Emmys and all the stuff he’s done. This was almost like Conan’s greatest hits. You had a little bit of everything: An incredibly funny monologue that had the hallmarks of what Conan does: silliness, self-deprecation, jokes that are funny—and then 20 minutes later you realize they’re really funny.”
Asked if we can expect to see O’Brien hosting the show again next year, Mills said “That’s really up to Conan, but I know we would love to have him back.”
O’Brien has yet to comment on whether he’d be interested in hosting the awards show again. Since retiring from a nearly 30-year career in late-night TV in 2021, he’s thrown himself into his Team Coco podcast network and, more recently, his Max travel series, Conan O’Brien Must Go. That said, as LateNighter’s Bill Carter wrote in his review of Sunday night’s Oscarcast, O’Brien certainly looked like he was having a good time, and said as much when he commented at the show’s end, “I had a blast.”
Stay tuned…
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