La La Land stormed the Box Office in 2016, bringing in almost $450 million, which is an incredible feat against it’s smaller budget of just $30m. When the Oscars came around the following year it was up for several categories, but the fiasco around who won Best Picture, La La Land or Moonlight, saw a huge mistake on stage in front of millions.
Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were chosen to read out the biggest gong at the awards show that night. When the veteran movie star was handling the envelope it looked like he was making a joke. The Hollywood star opened it, looked inside again to see if anything else was in there. He stopped, checked again and showed it to Faye and she read the words La La Land – they were named as the winner of Best Picture at the Oscars, but the problem is, they didn’t actually win.
La La Land Oscar mix-up was really awkward on stage
After hearing the name, the crew and cast of La La Land rushed on stage. Their acceptance speeches were already being made, with a tearful Emma Stone crying tears of joy behind the microphone.
But it was about to come crashing down.
Thinking they had won after already being nominated 14 times, it must have felt like they were unstoppable.
Producer Jordan Horowitz spoke first, holding the golden statue, before stepping aside for Marc Platt to take a turn. But as he’s talking he realizes something is happening behind them. A third producer, Fred Berger walks up, shaking his head as he approaches the mic but there’s clearly a problem. Stage manager Gary Natoli has arrived and Warren Beatty walks back.
Berge ends his speech with: “We lost, by the way”.
Horowitz storms in to explain: “Guys, I’m sorry. There’s a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture. This is not a joke. Come up here.”
Platt joins in: “This is not a joke, I’m afraid they read the wrong thing.”
Horowitz then takes the envelope out of Beatty’s hand and holds it up for the camera, which clearly says Moonlight won Best Picture. But it took an awkward 2 minutes and 30 seconds for the right answer to come out.
What happened?
Beatty explained how the huge Oscars mix up between La La Land and Moonlight happened.
He explained before stars go onto stage to announce winners, there are two sets of envelopes – the one they hand to celebrities, and another is a backup.
However, when the envelope was handed to him they mistakenly gave the card for Best Actress – which Emma Stone won at the Oscars for her performance in La La Land.
The reason he fumbled with the envelope in the clip, was he was trying to work out if it was correct. So it looked over at Faye for her to check, and they said La La Land.
He said: “I want to tell you what happened. I opened the envelope, and it said Emma Stone, La La Land. That’s why I took such a long look at Faye, and at you [the audience], I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
Host Jimmy Kimmel later said: “So this was confusing obviously, we thought he was being coy and cute to make everybody suffer but in reality he was perplexed by why her name was on it.”
Moonlight praises La La Land when they finally get up on stage
Director Barry Jenkins walks up to give a speech, and is clearly still shocked by it all.
But he wanted to praise the cast and crew of the rival Hollywood film.
He said: “Very clearly, even in my dreams, this could not be true
“But to hell with dreams, I’m done with it. Because this is true.”
“It is true, it’s not fake, we’ve been on the road with these guys for so long, and that was so gracious and so generous of them. My love to La La Land.”
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