The 86th Academy Awards are tonight and there are guaranteed to be plenty of surprises and upsets between the expected winners finally picking up their golden Oscar statues. But the fact is that it is still a four-hour show and something has to be going on in between the presentations. So what do producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, along with host Ellen DeGeneres, have in store for us?

First up is the show’s overall theme. Last year, Zadan and Meron made the ceremony about musicals, even though only one (Les Miserables) was up for any awards. However, this year, they are going to be different. The overall theme is heroes for 2014, which makes perfect sense. It was another big year for movies like Iron Man 3 and Thor The Dark World. The third Iron Man is up for the Oscar for Visual Effects.

The Wizard of Oz is also getting a special shout-out on the film’s 75th anniversary. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Judy Garland’s daughter, Liza Minnelli, will be on hand. Her children with Sidney Luft - Lorna Luft and Joey Luft - will also be in attendance.

Although music isn’t supposed to be the main theme, there certainly will be no shortage of it. All four of the Best Original Song nominees will be performed. U2 will perform “Ordinary Love,” the song from Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, while The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O. will sing “The Moon Song” from Her. Pharrell Williams (and his hat) will sing Despicable Me 2’s “Happy” and Idina Menzel will sing Frozen’s “Let It Go.”

Singers Pink and Bette Midler are also set to perform, although they didn’t appear in any Oscar-nominated films last year.

As for DeGeneres, well, we don’t quite know what she’ll do, but it will involve making the audience laugh. She told Good Morning America during the week that her job is to “relax everybody.” She said some of her material was written awhile ago, so the only thing she had to plan in the last few days was what to do during the show.

The Oscars are on ABC tonight. You can check out our reviews of the Best Picture nominees here.

image courtesy of ABC