Bruno’s antics at Milan Fashion Week didn’t perturb Bill Mechanic. Just a few weeks ago we told you that Sacha Baron Cohen was the producer’s first choice to host the 2010 Academy Awards. Turns out the Academy had some concerns about the idea and Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin got the job. Now it looks like Baron Cohen’s original supporter, Mechanic, is having some second thoughts himself.

Vulture reports Baron Cohen and Ben Stiller were set to do a sketch poking fun at James Cameron’s beloved masterpiece Avatar. Having been the head of Twentieth Century Fox when Titanic broke the bank, Mechanic is all too familiar with Cameron’s sense of humor, or lack there of. The article quotes an insider as saying, “Let’s just say that Cameron isn’t known to be, shall we say, ‘self-deprecating.’” Mechanic came to the conclusion that the skit had to go.

The plan was to have Baron Cohen dress up as a female Na’vi. She’d deliver a speech and Stiller would translate. As the skit progresses, Baron Cohen would grow increasingly frustrated with Stiller’s poor translation and ultimately reveal his/her pregnant belly. Incubating in the belly? Cameron’s love child. Baron Cohen would then approach Cameron Jerry Springer-style claiming he was the baby daddy. Vulture reached out to both Academy spokesperson Toni Thompson and Baron Cohen’s spokesman Matt Labov. Thompson merely confirmed Baron Cohen will not present and Labov had this to say: “I hate to use the term, because it's so ubiquitous, but there were ‘creative differences.’ Nothing acrimonious, but both sides felt that since they couldn’t agree, [Cohen] might as well remain in London.”

Perhaps the problem lays in the word ‘approach.’ We all remember what happened when Baron Cohen ‘approached’ Eminem. It’s doubtful that Cameron would take something along those lines any better. And could you imagine if the man behind the film up for Best Picture were to walk out? On the other hand, why should we have to tiptoe around Cameron because he lacks the ability to laugh at himself? If he can create the elaborate world of Pandora, I’m sure he’s capable of engineering some sort of sense of humor.