Seth MacFarlane will not be returning to host the Oscars, at least not next year.  While the Family Guy creator earned mixed reviews for his hosting duties earlier this year, producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron nevertheless reached out to MacFarlane to see if he’d want to come back and host again in 2014.  While the very busy MacFarlane seems like he was up to the task, scheduling issues have forced him to decline via a statement on his Twitter:

“Traumatized critics exhale: I’m unable to do the Oscars again. Tried to make it work schedule-wise, but I need sleep. However, I highly recommend the job, as Zadan and Meron are two of the most talented producers in the business. My suggestion for host is Joaquin Phoenix.”

MacFarlane is currently filming and starring in his second feature directorial effort, A Million Ways to Die in the West, and he’s expected to shoot the Ted sequel later this year, which would account for the scheduling difficulties.  With MacFarlane now out, who do you think should be at the helm of next year’s Oscars? My vote is for Neil Patrick Harris or Hugh Jackman.

Seth MacFarlane got mixed reviews as host of the 2013 Academy Awards.  But the audience grew to 40.3 million viewers over the previous year hosted by Billy Crystal —more importantly, the audience grew younger, with 20% more 18-34 viewers.  This year’s telecast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will return to oversee the 2014 Oscars and have reportedly asked MacFarlane to host again.  A source tells Just Jared:

“After defending his performance, the producers reached out to Seth and invited him back to host the show again.  He’s not sure if he’s going to do it, but he has to decide within the next couple of weeks.”

MacFarlane has stated he does not want to host again, tweeting “No way” shortly after the ceremony.  If he changes his mind, I would like to see him try again.  MacFarlane was admittedly hit-or-miss his first time around, but I would like for my generation to have a Bob Hope/Billy Crystal type—a go-to host.  The most important step toward that goal is to give a natural talent several chances to refine his approach.  I believe MacFarlane is qualified.  Next year’s Academy Awards are set for March 2, 2014.

The Academy has announced some important dates for its 86th and 87th Academy Awards ceremonies.  Next year’s Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 2nd, while 2015’s Oscars will take place on February 22nd.  Nominations for the 2014 ceremony will be announced on January 16th.  The move for the 2014 Oscars means there will be yet another extended amount of time between when the nominations are announced and when the actual Oscars take place, so ready yourselves for yet another long awards season.

The prolonged period between the nominations and the ceremony means that voters should have enough time to see everything, but it also means that the studios’ campaigns get pretty intense as we start hating films that we actually used to like simply because their “Oscar-worthiness” is being shoved down our throats.  Nevertheless, there’s no lack of awards material set to debut later this year, so the 86th Academy Awards should be another interesting ride.

You’ve read our predictions, you’ve read all of our Oscar coverage, and tonight the winners of the 85th Academy Awards will be announced.  As I’ve done in past years, I will be live-blogging the ceremony and some of the red carpet.  Seth MacFarlane is hosting this year’s ceremony, and I’ve got a good feeling that he’ll do a solid job.  Of course, it’s the Oscars so there will be plenty of silliness both intended and unintended, and I’ll be providing my thoughts on all of it throughout the night.

My live-blogging will kick in around 8:00pm (EST) and then just keep refreshing the page for my latest thoughts on the 85th Academy Awards.  I’ll also be tweeting (cross-platform mockery!), and you can follow me on Twitter at @MattGoldberg.  We’re almost at the finish line of the 2013 awards race.  Let’s brave Hollywood’s self-congratulatory ceremony together.  The ceremony begins at 8:30pm (EST).

Alas, we’ve come to the end.  The 85th Academy Awards will take place tomorrow evening, after which the past year of maneuvering, campaigning, and controversy-drumming will be rendered obsolete as we wipe the slate clean and start the next awards season cycle anew.  Over the past six days, we’ve been taking a look back at the 2012 awards race in a number of categories, chronicling the ebbs and flows that have led us to today.  This past year was one of the more crazy awards seasons in recent memory, but at least it’s been interesting.  Today we close out our Road to Oscar feature with the final category, Best Picture.  Hit the jump to read on, and click here to read our predictions for tomorrow night’s ceremony.

Adam and I briefly talked about our predictions on the latest episode of The Collision, but we know your Oscar pool needs more guidance.  It’s a rough year, and a lot of Oscar ballots are going to go down in flames.  Last year, I played the wild card on my Oscar predictions and lost big, but this year I’m going to try and be a bit savvier.  However, I’m going up against Collider’s Oscar guru, so if you’re going to copy one of our cheat-sheets, it’s probably best to cheat off Adam.

Hit the jump for who we think deserves to win and who we think will win at the 85th Academy Awards.  Be sure to come back Sunday night when I’ll be live-blogging the ceremony.  Adam and I will also be tweeting the Oscars, so be sure to follow us @AdamChitwood and @MattGoldberg, respectively.

For proof that 2012 was a nutty year for awards contenders, look no further than the Best Director category.  Over the past few days, we’ve been looking back how the ebbs and flows of the past 12 months have shaped the awards race in a number of categories, and one of the most dynamic shifts came with Best Director.  After the jump, we run down how the race for Oscar glory progressed over the past few months to give us the five nominees who will be vying for the gold on Oscar Sunday.  Hit the jump to read on.

On this special mid-week episode of The Collision, we will be talking about the 85th Academy Awards.  We wanted to bring this one to you a little early, so you’ll have time to listen to it before the ceremony Sunday night.  We’ll be talking about the surprise nominations, the awards race since the nominations were announced, our predictions, and more.  As always, we’ll be finishing up with our recommendations.

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for the previous episode (“The Die Hard Franchise, Legacy, and A Good Day to Die Hard“), click here to add the podcast to your RSS, and click here to find us on iTunes. To keep up to date with The Collision, you can follow us on Twitter at @MattGoldberg, @AdamChitwood, and @DrClawMD (Dave Trumbore). Hit the jump to check out the trailers for this week’s recommendations.

During the Academy Awards broadcast last year, the good folks at Mondo dropped a few gorgeous prints from films that were nominated.  They’re doing the same thing this year, and today they’ve unveiled the first three posters in their second annual Oscar series: Laurent Durieux’s The Master, Olly Moss’ Les Miserables, and DKNG’s ParaNorman.  All three posters are unsurprisingly excellent, but I’m absolutely mesmerized by Durieux’s entrancing print for The Master.  It’s a stunning piece of work, and I’m sure many of you will be angling to nab a copy during Sunday’s ceremony.

Mondo says that many more posters will be unveiled during the awards show broadcast, when said prints will also go on sale.  Hit the jump to preview these first three prints, and start preparing to do some very fast typing on Sunday night.  As always, follow @MondoNews for the on-sale announcements.

A new batch of presenters has been announced for the upcoming 85th Academy Awards ceremony, and we figured now would be a good time to round up all of the presenters announced thus far in one handy story.  It was announced today that Jane Fonda, Kristen Stewart, Jennifer Garner, and Kerry Washington have joined the rather long list of presenters for the ceremony, which will be hosted by Seth Macfarlane.

We already learned that Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, and Mark Ruffalo from The Avengers will be presenting together, and Macfarlane has put together a tribute to movie musicals from the past decade that includes Dreamgirls’ Jennifer Hudson, Chicago’s Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Les Miserables’ Hugh Jackman, Amanda Seyfried, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Helena Bonham Carter, and Samantha Barks.  Hit the jump to take a gander at the entire list of presenters, and click here to catch up on all of our recent Road to Oscar series.  The Oscars will be held this Sunday, February 24th, at 7pm EST on ABC. 

Continuing on with our “Road to Oscar” feature, today we’re going to take a look at how the race for Best Actress played out over the past 12 months.  With the 85th Academy Awards taking place this coming Sunday, we figured this week would be a nice opportunity to reflect on how a number of Oscar categories got to where they are today.  Join us after the jump as we break down the race for Best Actress.

This is one of the toughest Academy Awards in recent memory when it comes to predictions.  Usually, prediction ballots live or die based on the shorts section coupled with a few surprises.  But a number of major categories are up for grabs this year including Best Director and Best Supporting Actor.  It looks like Argo is the favorite to nab Best Picture, but even some prognosticators are sticking with Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook.  So who can we turn to when it comes to making an accurate prediction?  Puppies, of course.  On Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, five puppies had the option of nine bowls of kibble, each labeled with a different Best Picture nominee.  It’s a highly scientific method of predicting the winner, and I wish that the puppies could vote.  They’d probably do a better job than this moron of an Academy voter.

Hit the jump to check out the video, and click here to read Adam’s “The Road to Oscar” series.  The 85th Academy Awards will be held this Sunday at 7pm EST on ABC.

As Sunday’s 85th Annual Academy Awards loom closer, we’ve using this week as an opportunity to take a look back at how the past year’s Oscar race has played out in a number of categories.  We first took a look at the ebbs and flows in the Best Supporting Actor category, and then we chronicled the road that lead us to the Best Supporting Actress nominees.  Today we’re examining the Best Actor race, which actually seemed to be all wrapped up months before the nominees were even announced.  Hit the jump to read on.

It’s hard to believe that the 85th Academy Awards are merely just a few days away, and as evidenced by our ongoing The Road to Oscar feature, it’s been a rather nutty year awards season-wise.  In anticipation of the upcoming ceremony, someone has put together a nifty video montage that features footage from all 84 past Best Picture winners.  It’s a fun look back at Academy history as we’re reminded which Oscar winners have stood the test of time and which ones are somewhat perplexing in hindsight (I cringed when Crash popped up).

Hit the jump to take a look at the video and see how many Best Picture winners you can name.  If you’ve missed any of our Road to Oscar features thus far, click here to catch up.  Look for more Oscar goodness here on Collider in the next few days including the last few Road to Oscar entries, a special Oscar episode of our podcast The Collision, and finally our predictions for the ceremony.  The Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 24th on ABC at 8:30 ET.

With the 85th Academy Awards looming closer, we here at Collider thought now would be a good time to take a look back at Oscar race thus far.  It’s been a wild and somewhat nutty 12 months, as we’ve seen numerous contenders rise and fall (and some rise back up again) in the contentious hunt for Oscar gold.  We’ve already run down the ebbs and flows of the Best Supporting Actor category, and today we’ll be taking a look back and how the race played out for Best Supporting Actress.