Ricky Gervais’ new movie may not have done very well at the box office last weekend, but it doesn’t seemed to have hurt his career any. EW claims he’s a frontrunner to host next year’s Oscars.

Word is that all the interest in getting Gevais on stage was generated from his hilarious skit during the Emmys last weekend, in which he forced Steve Carell to give him back the Emmy he accepted for him last year. Weirdly enough, they say the box office failure of Ghost Town actually helps his case, giving him some sort of automatic, self-loathing punchline to use.

I’m not sure I buy it. The reason Ghost Town failed is that no one knows who Ricky Gervais is. I know who he is, you know who he is, but we’re a pair of pop culture nerds surfing the internet together. We obsessed over the British Office and watched Extras on HBO while the rest of America was watching Dancing with the Stars. The Academy actually wants people to watch their broadcast and for decades now they’ve attempted to accomplish that by hiring a big name to host it. Ricky Gervais is not a big name. Maybe he’d be great, heck I’m almost certain he’d be perfect. But I can’t believe they’d actually pick him.

Here’s Ricky’s brilliant bit from the Emmy Awards last weekend: