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New Golden Globes owner Dick Clark Prods. is planning a major expansion of the franchise this year, adding two more events alongside the usual 2025 awards ceremony. For the first time, the Globes plans to throw a separate event to honor the recipients of its two largest honorary kudos: Cecil B. DeMille winner Viola Davis and Carol Burnett Award winner Ted Danson will be feted at a gala dinner on Friday, Jan. 3, two days before the main telecast on Sunday, Jan. 5. Also, the Globes is planning a luncheon to recognize first-time nominees.
Like the main Golden Globes ceremony, the Cecil B. DeMille/Carol Burnett gala will take place at the Beverly Hilton. The event won’t be televised, but excerpts from the moments that Davis and Danson are honored will be excerpted and included during the 82nd Annual Golden Globes broadcast.
Barry Adelman, the exec VP of television for Dick Clark Productions, said the decision to spin off the honorary awards into a separate event gave them an opportunity to give Davis and Danson a “whole night of recognition. We found we weren’t able to do a good enough full tribute to them with the time restrictions of the show. Because you give this truncated tribute, you can’t help it when you’re trying to do it among 26 other awards. Both of them deserve a lot more. This way, they get their night with their peers and friends, and then also at our show, they’ll be acknowledged — so that the room can show them the love that they both deserve.”
Popular on Variety As for the first-time nominee event — a luncheon scheduled for later this month — the Globes will honor the 26 performers who have received their first nominations. That includes this year’s Globes host, Nikki Glaser (nominated in stand-up comedy special for “Nikki Glaser: Someday You’ll Die”), as well as Ariana Grande, Dakota Fanning, Glen Powell, Jesse Plemons, Karla Sofia Gascón, Kathryn Hahn, Liza Colón-Zayas, Maya Erskine, Pamela Anderson, Richard Gadd, Seth Meyers, Zoe Saldaña, Anna Sawai and others.
“It’s a big deal when you get your first nomination and they get a chance to celebrate with others that are experiencing the same thing, it will be a great atmosphere,” Adelman said.
The new events come as nearly two years after Dick Clark Prods and Todd Boehly’s Eldridge acquired the assets of the awards from the nonprofit Hollywood Foreign Press Association, giving them the opportunity to experiment with new ways to unroll the Globes. (Dick Clark Prods. was already familiar with the Globes, of course, having produced the telecast for decades.)
“I think we understand the show, and we understand, after doing it for years, what makes it work and what it needs,” Adelman said. “Now we have a chance to come up with ideas and see if they work. But if they sound good and and it sounds like it’s good for the business, we’re going to do it.”
Last year’s Globes on CBS saw a 50% ratings boost; this year’s telecast will rep the first under a new five-year deal that the Eye network (and its streamer sibling Paramount+) sealed to formally take over broadcast rights to the ceremony.
“We’re feeling great about CBS because they’re a great creative partner,” Adelman said. “We’ve got Nikki Glaser hosting, which is going to make people tune in, I think. I know if I weren’t producing the show, I’d be watching, because you want to see what she’s going to say. I think we’re continuing the tradition of ‘anything can happen’ at the Golden Globes.”
Last year’s ratings uptick came despite negative marks for that year’s host, Jo Koy, who was recruited only a few weeks before the show — not enough time to prepare. Adelman still lauded Koy for bringing in a large fan base, while also admitting that Glaser — who was announced in September — has had more time to prep.
“She’s had a little more to think about it,” he said. “She’s very clever, very bright. If you saw the Tom Brady roast and you saw her special, you know her comedy. Sometimes it goes over the edge. She’s the kind of person that makes people pay attention to what she’s going to say. And I think we’re going to get a lot of tune in just to see what she’s going to say.”
And then there’s the awards themselves. This is the second year that the Globes will hand out a “cinematic and box office achievement” honor, recognizing populist films such as “Alien: Romulus,” “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Gladiator II,” “Inside Out 2,” “Twisters,” “Wicked” and “The Wild Robot.”
“These are films that deserve to be honored because they’re setting records around the world, making money for an industry that we all need,” Adelman said. “I think it’s a great idea to honor these films and excited about it. If you’re making that much money on a film that some of those movies are making, you deserve an acknowledgement from the industry that you’ve done something great.”
Variety parent company PMC owns Dick Clark Prods. in a joint venture with Eldridge.
