While the Oscars generally do a good job highlighting the best movies of any given year, there are always snubs: work or performances that audiences feel should be recognized, but aren't. This year's Academy Award ceremony almost saw a special tribute to these poor souls in the form of a special Lonely Island sketch - but while it didn't wind up making broadcast, you can now witness a workprint version online:
As noted in the video's text introduction, Lonely Island members Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer were approached by the Oscars about writing a special song for the 90th Annual ceremony. Unfortunately, the result of their creative sessions working on the project was ultimately deemed "financially and logistically impossible," and eventually scrapped. The good news is that they apparently maintained the rights to the material they produced, so they threw together the basic version that you can see above.
The gist of the music video is expressed in the song title, "Why Not Me," with the idea being that "snubbed" actors would sing about their woes not being nominated. It would have begun with Chris Hemsworth in character as Thor being upset about Thor: Ragnarok not getting any recognition, but then Gal Gadot would take over the second verse as Wonder Woman, her film also not mentioned in any category. After that it would have been a parade of stars, including Bill Skarsgard in makeup as Pennywise from IT, all five of the Chrises (Chris Pratt, Chris Pine, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Chris Rock) together for a special segment, Tiffany Haddish belting about wizzing on a zipline, and Jason Momoa as Aquaman mocking The Shape of Water.
All of that probably would have been tough to get done, but watching the video my most prominent thought was wondering just how game Michael Fassbender would be to throw The Snowman under the bus. The song is pretty brutal to the failed thriller, and there may be a part of him is proud of the work he did on the film... playing Detective Harry Hole.
This video is pretty great all by itself, but it does remain sad that the original concept will probably never be fully realized. That being said, this totally seems like a project that Jimmy Kimmel (host of the 2018 Oscars) or one of the other late night hosts would take on for their respective shows, working with The Lonely Island. It might actually prove to be "financially and logistically impossible," but we won't know until someone actually tries, right? At the very least a segment about attempting to make the video would probably wind up being fairly entertaining, so let's hope that someday it could actually come together.
