[8] In related events, the Academy held its second annual Governors Awards ceremony at the Grand Ballroom of the Hollywood and Highland Center on November 13, 2010.

[11][12][13] Other winners included Inception with four awards, The Social Network with three, Alice in Wonderland, The Fighter, and Toy Story 3 with two, and Black Swan, God of Love, In a Better World, Inside Job, The Lost Thing, Strangers No More, and The Wolfman with one.

"Their work in producing the Academy's inaugural Governors Awards was exceptional and I am confident they will bring their creative vision and extraordinary talent to produce/direct a most memorable Oscar show.

We hope to create an Oscar broadcast that will both showcase their incredible talents and entertain the world on February 27," said Cohen and Mischer regarding their selections to host the gala.

"[36] Franco and Hathaway became the first male-female duo to co-host the awards show since comedian Jerry Lewis and actress Celeste Holm presided over the 29th ceremony in 1957.

The Academy revamped their official website oscar.com to include lists of all the nominees and winners, as well as film trailers and exclusive video content produced by both AMPAS and Oscar telecaster ABC.

[39] For a fee of US$4.99, users had online access to two dozen video streams that would take them from the red carpet, through the ceremony and on to the post-telecast Governors Ball.

[44][45] During the run-up to the ceremony, television personality Chris Harrison hosted "Road to the Oscars", a weekly behind-the-scenes video blog.

[34] In the closing weeks, Franco went back to Apatow who hired four additional writers; in response, Hathaway brought in Liz Feldman.

"[34] Franco immediately left after the show ended, catching a flight to make a morning seminar on medieval manuscripts at Yale.

At the time of the announcement of nominations on January 25, Toy Story 3 was the highest-grossing film among the Best Picture nominees with $414.9 million in domestic box office receipts.

Only Toy Story 3 (1st), Inception (5th), How to Train Your Dragon (9th), True Grit (17th), The Social Network (29th), The Town (32nd), Black Swan (38th), and The Fighter (45th) were nominated for directing, acting, screenwriting, Best Picture or Animated Feature.

[52] The other top-50 box office hits that earned nominations were Alice in Wonderland (2nd), Iron Man 2 (3rd), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1 (6th), Tangled (10th), Tron: Legacy (12th), Salt (21st), and Unstoppable (39th).

"[53] Writer David Wild called it "the world's most uncomfortable blind date between the cool rocker stoner kid and the adorable theater camp cheerleader.

"[34] Television critic Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter commented, "In what could go down as one of the worst Oscar telecasts in history, a bad and risky idea — letting two actors host — played out in spectacularly unwatchable fashion on the biggest of all nights for the film world."

Entertainment Weekly television critic Ken Tucker stated that the show was "Funny, poised, relaxed, and smart, Anne Hathaway and James Franco made for marvelous Oscar hosts.

Their combination of respect and informality struck the right tone for the night, a happily surprising production that had its share of fine moments both planned and ad-libbed."

"[56] Mary McNamara from the Los Angeles Times commented, "The two seemed to be following the directive to "first do no harm," as if they knew they couldn't score as big as Jimmy Fallon did with the Emmy Awards, but were determined to avoid becoming morning show fodder like Ricky Gervais was after this year's Golden Globes.