Jimmy Kimmel got the inevitable joke out of the way.

The 2023 Oscars host took to the stage Sunday night and declared: “We want you to have fun. We want you to feel safe. And most importantly, we want me to feel safe. So we have strict policies in place. If anyone in this theater commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you will be awarded the Oscar for Best Actor and be permitted to give an 18-minute long speech.”

He then added: “Seriously, the Academy has a crisis team in place. If anything unpredictable or violent happens during the ceremony, just do what you did last year – nothing.”

Kimmel also:

— Called Steven Spielberg and Seth Rogen “the Joe and Hunter Biden of Hollywood,” earning some warning groans from the crowd.

— “James Cameron is not here. You know a show is too long when even James Cameron can’t sit through it … How does the Academy not nominate a guy who made Avatar, what do they think he is, a woman?”

— “Tom Cruise and James Cameron didn’t show up. The two guys who insisted we go to the theater didn’t go to the theater.”

— “Batgirl became the first superhero to became defeated by the accounting department.”

— “I’m happy to see Nicole Kidman has been finally released by that abandoned AMC. Thank you for encouraging people who were already at the movie theater to go to the theater.”

— “Only Walt Disney has been nominated for more Oscars than John Williams. He’s been nominated 53 times and won 5. Which is not great.”

More updates to come…

While Tom Cruise snubbed the Oscars by not attending the ceremony, producers did make him part of an opening skit, sort of, by intercutting Kimmel into Cruse’s jet in Top Gun: Maverick.

Kimmel is hosting the Oscars for the third time, with the show airing live on ABC from the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood. Producers opted for a trio of hosts last year, which will forever be remembered as the Oscars when Will Smith walked on stage and slapped presented Chris Rock, due to a joke aimed at wife Jada Pinkett-Smith shortly before the King Richard star would go on and win the best actor award.

The Slap, or “slapgate,” is likely the most-discussed Oscars moment of all time, sparking the Academy to ban Smith from the ceremony for a decade and for Smith to repeatedly apologize for his actions. It also sparked plenty of chatter about the subject of toxic masculinity and live event security amid an increasingly divisive era.

Kimmel was asked whether joking about The Slap is boring at this point, and he replied, “Well, whatever I say about it, it’s going to have to be great, right? Because so much has been said and there’s so much focus on it. I obviously don’t want to make the whole monologue about that, but it would be ridiculous not to mention it.”

Asked why he agreed to take what’s been described as a thankless job for the third time in a row (he previously hosted in 2017 and 2018), the ABC late-night host explained, “I didn’t necessarily think I’d ever do it again or be asked to do it again. And it wasn’t one of those situations where they couldn’t get anybody and they asked me at the last minute — I definitely would have said no if that was the case. So, I don’t know, it kind of came out of the blue and they clearly got me at the right moment. I did wait a week to tell my wife. I thought she might react negatively, but she was very positive, so I said, ‘OK, yeah, I’ll do it.’”