Would you not pay any amount of money to see the former president host the Oscars?
During a lazy afternoon last week, I found myself scanning the headlines of the Hollywood Reporter. I was in search of the latest scoop on the Oscar race, or perhaps a prediction of the coming weekend's box-office returns, but, to my astonishment, I found something altogether different.
The former President Joe Biden, the website advised, had entered into an agreement to be represented by the Creative Arts Agency (CAA), a talent agency in Los Angeles. Forget celebrity gossip -- here was some news!
"His lifelong commitment to public service is one of unity, optimism, dignity, and possibility," CAA co-chairman Richard Lovett told the Reporter. "We are profoundly honored to partner with him again."
Indeed, the article noted that Biden had last engaged the services of CAA during the gap between his vice-presidency and his presidency, which had led to the publication of a book and a speaking tour.
Perhaps Biden's latest round of agency representation will result in nothing more than the usual blah post-presidential memoir, but the news got me to thinking: What sort of Hollywood opportunities might await an 82-year-old former commander in chief?
This being Oscar season, my first thought went to the Academy Awards, scheduled to take place on March 2 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. As it happens, this year's ceremony marks the ninth anniversary of the telecast during which the long-in-the-tooth stars of Bonnie and Clyde, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, were tapped to announce the winner of Best Picture. As faithful Oscar-watchers will recall, Beatty opened the envelope, took a gander at the card, scrutinized the interior of the envelope again, turned confusedly to Dunaway, fussed with the card and envelope once more, and proceeded to permit his co-presenter to read the wrong winner. Remember? La La Land was blurted out as the Best Picture when, in fact, Moonlight had accumulated the most votes. This breathtakingly entertaining mishap was blamed on the placement of the wrong card in the envelope.
Well, if Oscar producers are looking for a repeat of this much-watched and much-discussed moment, surely Joe Biden would be every bit as capable as Warren Beatty at presiding over a major awards-ceremony snafu. In fact, there is no telling what might happen if Biden were asked to open an envelope during the ceremony.
If asked to read the winner of, say, Best Actor, Biden might start talking about Covid or how he finally "beat" Medicare; assuming he managed to read the correct name of the winner, Biden might linger in the background, staring with his mouth agape as the winner thanks his friends, family, hairdresser, and manager. Nine years ago, Beatty made an earnest attempt to explain what had gone wrong in the La La Land/Moonlight debacle, but Biden, pressed to explain his own hypothetical mishap, would likely commandeer the telecast with a rambling explanation punctuated by periodic exclamations of "Anyway...."
So what else might Biden do in show business?
Hollywood is seemingly always on the lookout for senescent movie stars to cast in the role of aging presidents in movies and TV shows -- you know, like Gene Hackman in Absolute Power or Jonathan Pryce in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. But why hire actors when you can cast the real thing? To judge on the trailers for the forthcoming movie Captain America: Brave New World, Harrison Ford, cast as President Thaddeus Ross, looks just about as grizzled as Biden -- and the two men are, in fact, the same age. Raise your hand if you want to see Biden as Red Hulk.
Although Biden's gift for writing is approximately on the same level as his facility for speaking, the former president could follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, who, in collaboration with best-selling author James Patterson, became a novelist: The Clinton-Patterson novel The President Is Missing was published in 2018. How about Biden writes, or co-writes, a novel titled The President Is Deposed? The plot would concern a duly elected president expelled from office not by voters but by fictional stand-ins for the speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, assorted left-wing cable news hosts, and George Clooney. Great beach reading, no?
Which brings me to my final Biden Goes Hollywood brainstorm: Amid all the consolidation in the entertainment industry, what if Biden finds himself named the chairman or president of a major movie studio? For the sake of argument, let's say that the studio has previously engaged the services of George Clooney, who, last summer, lobbied publicly for Biden to depart the presidential race. If Biden finds himself as a studio head, why not cancel all of Clooney's pending projects?