Oscar hosts will be Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin

Academy Awards producers opt for comedy duo after Gervais is picked for the Globes

FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 4, 2009

The movie award season looks likely to be hotly contested this winter for host of the year. After the recent news that the Golden Globe organisers have hired comedian Ricky Gervais to host their show on January 17, the American Academy has hit back with the announcement that the comedy duo of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, both well known for fronting Saturday Night Live, are to host Oscars night in March.

The decision to have a pair of hosts is a surprise. It's only been tried three times before in the 81-year history of the Oscars - the last time being 1946 when Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart teamed up to do the honours.

It would seem that the new Oscar show producers, Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman, started out with the idea of rehiring Steve Martin - who has hosted the ceremony before in 2001 and 2003 to mainly positive reaction - and then decided to pair him up.

Hollywood insiders expected his partner to be Tina Fey, with whom Martin made an appearance at last year's Oscars in one of the highlights of that show. Instead, Fey's lead actor on 30 Rock - the NBC show she created and co-stars in - has been picked.

Part of the attraction is that Martin and Baldwin are starring together in the new romantic comedy, It's Complicated, due to be released on Christmas Day.

They could find themselves on stage with their co-star in that film, Meryl Streep. She looks likely to be a contender for best actress for her performance as the TV cook Julia Child in Julie & Julia.

Whatever Martin's appearance does for the Oscar ratings, it will be a popular choice with the show's backroom staff. TheWrap.com quotes Garry Hood, the stage manager in charge of dealing with the Oscars host, as saying: "There's low-maintenance, there's high-maintenance, and there's Steve Martin: no maintenance."

Martin likes to drive to the theatre in his own car and requires little of the "special treatment" routinely accorded the Oscar host during rehearsals for the big night - which this time round will be March 7.