Earlier this month, the 84th Academy Awards telecast was set to be produced by movie director Brett Ratner and hosted by Ratner's Tower Heist star Eddie Murphy. Then, after Ratner committed two public gaffes while out promoting Tower Heist (Ratner once used a homophobic slur while discussing rehearsals and also offered a rather candid summation about his sex life with actress Olivia Munn, which he later recanted), Ratner dropped out as the show's producer, with Murphy following shortly thereafter.
Academy Award–winning producer Brian Grazer stepped in and replaced Ratner and eventually named eight-time Oscars host Billy Crystal to replace Murphy. With the dust settled, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak told EW that he felt "very badly" for Ratner.
While some online opinion has offered that Crystal hosting the Oscars is a "safer" choice, Sherak disagreed. "He is a great host, but when you go live on ABC at 5:30 for movie’s biggest night, safety is thrown out the door," said Sherak. "Anything can happen and some people will love it and some will hate it. And the writers will drive you crazy because one year they call us irrelevant and say we need to tap into a younger crowd and then we get young hosts [James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosted this year's Oscars to less-than-thrilling results] and book younger talent and then they say we are pandering to young people too much."
Grazer clearly likes Crystal as the host as well, since, as Grazer recently explained to EW, he was the one who convinced Crystal to return as the Oscar host shortly after getting the job as the producer.As for whether Crystal is the "safe" choice to host the Oscars, Grazer agreed with Sherak.