HOLLYWOOD — It has been a rocky road for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences leading up to this year’s Oscars Sunday.

Last year, producers announced they would include a new awards category to honor popular films during this year’s show. Everyone hated that idea, so they scrapped it.

More recently, they announced that four awards would be presented during commercial breaks in order to keep the show’s runtime down. Everyone hated that idea, so they scrapped it, too.

The show starts Sunday at 6 p.m. Mountain Time. Even though the Academy has walked back those previously proposed changes, there are still a few things that will be different this year, for better or worse.

Here are five notable things about this year’s Academy Awards.

No host

This year will be the first time in 30 years that the Academy Awards ceremony will not have a host.

It’s not for lack of trying. Comedian Kevin Hart was set to emcee the show until some controversial old tweets surfaced and he backed out of the hosting gig.

The last time the show went on without a host was in 1989, according to Vox. It ... wasn’t exactly a success. In place of a host monologue during that broadcast, Rob Lowe did a duet with Snow White, for some reason. Let’s just say that hopefully, this year’s host-less broadcast goes a little better.

A bonus musical performance

Much of how the Academy will fill the time with no host during the show remains to be seen. But there will be an extra music performance to fill some of the void.

Queen and Adam Lambert will perform at the show as a tie-in with the Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which is nominated for multiple Oscars this year.

Musical entertainment for the show also will include Jennifer Hudson, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga and Bette Midler, who will all be performing the songs nominated for the Best Original Song awards category, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Academy reverses plans, will air all awards live at Oscars

Bowing to a backlash that had threatened to engulf an already blunder-plagued Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday reversed its decision to present four awards during the commercial breaks of this year's Oscar broadcast.

Foreign directors nominated

This year’s Best Director field features three foreign directors: Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón (“Roma”), Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”) and Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski (“Cold War”).

The last time that happened was in 2015 when Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Lenny Abrahamson and George Miller — who are Mexican, Irish and Australian, respectively — were nominated in the category.

First-time acting winner

None of the Best Actress and Actor nominees have won one of the top two Academy Awards for acting. Though some of the candidates have been nominated before, this year will see a first-time winner in each of these categories.

Glenn Close, nominated for Best Actress for her role in “The Wife," is one of the most decorated Academy Awards nominees. She has been nominated three other times for Best Actress, and three times for Best Supporting Actress, but she didn't win in any of those instances.

Close’s fellow nominees this year — Yalitza Aparicio (“Roma”), Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”), Lady Gaga (“A Star Is Born”) and Melissa McCarthy (“Can You Ever Forgive Me”) — are all first-time Best Actress nominees.

A shorter broadcast

You might get a few more hours of sleep on Oscar night this year. In the name of preserving television ratings, Academy officials have said they want to keep the Oscars show to under three hours.

Ratings for the show have taken a nosedive in recent years, according to the New York Times. Last year, only 26.5 million people tuned in, down from almost double that amount a few years ago.

But with all the awards being presented, and all the nominated songs being performed, it’s not clear how exactly producers will make the show shorter.

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