‘American Idol’ now reportedly ‘negotiating’ with Jennifer Hudson

Oh boy. Round and round we go with the “American Idol” judging stories. Earlier today, Jennifer Hudson was just being “considered” for a role as an “American Idol” judge for season 13. Now, this has somehow progressed to her being in heavy negotiations to take a spot on a newly-formed panel.

The new reports on this catastrophe-of-sorts are coming in via The Wrap, who says that the Oscar-winner’s representatives are negotiating right now with production. We do at least like the honesty here that this process could take months to complete, even if the parties are starting talks with this now. (This, to us, translates to what we said earlier: There’s nothing officially probably getting announced here until September.)

As for why Hudson and potentially a panel of former contestants is being considered in the first place, a source suggests that this is meant almost as a love letter to fans who used to watch the show, and perhaps do not anymore:

“The show’s producers feel they’ve lost their core audience … And they want to bring back former contestants in order to tell their core audience, ‘We love you.’ They know they’ve made some major mistakes over the past few seasons and they want to make it right with their fans.”

Is this going to work? We basically see it as almost being the equivalent of NBC suddenly reviving “Friends” for a new collection of episodes. You may get excited about it, but there’s no guarantee that you can re-capture the magic that was once there. Hudson is at least a nice start if she does end up landing the gig, we think she’s fantastic: Plus, she has the opportunity to get at least four or five times the demo ratings that “Smash” received for its second season.

As far as we know, Adam Lambert and Clay Aiken are both still possibly in contention. Meanwhile, Kelly Clarkson seems to be out, as her focus seems to be on music first and foremost.

Photo: Fox