One year later, the 2017 Oscar Best Picture debacle feels like a fever dream. It’s still crazy to me that it’s literally my job to watch the Oscars and provide any kind of commentary on them, and what I remember clearly was being pretty tired – it had been such a long night – but that I was grateful to Jimmy Kimmel because he had kept the show moving at a brisk pace, and that the show was ending at a somewhat reasonable time. When they announced La La Land as Best Picture, I already knew what I wanted to write – which basically consisted of “shoulda been Moonlight” – and then as I was writing my analysis for the last post of the evening, all hell broke loose on stage. By now, we know what happened – Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were given the wrong card, and Faye announced “La La Land” even though the wrong card clearly said “Best Actress: Emma Stone for La La Land.” Warren Beatty was given props for keeping his head and putting the pieces together quickly, even though the whole thing still descended into chaos. Anyway, guess who’s coming back to present Best Picture on Sunday?
After the real-life disaster at last year’s Oscars, the Academy feels the best way to make sure the proper people accept the award for Best Picture — bring back the ones who screwed it up … because TMZ has learned Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway will do the honors again!!!
Our Oscar sources tell us Warren and Faye both just showed up at the Dolby Theatre and rehearsed the big moment. We’re told they were shuffled onstage together very quickly to run through their bit. They went through their lines twice. She began by saying, “Presenting is better the second time around,” Beatty followed up with, “The winner is ‘Gone with the Wind.'”
We’re told the writers are still putting finishing touches on their lines.
You’ll recall last year, we reported Warren and Faye had so much animosity toward each other they refused to rehearse onstage together. That set up the debacle when Faye opened the envelope and announced “La La Land” as the winner. Once on stage, they were sent packing when the producer of the movie announced the screw up — that “Moonlight” actually was the winner.
I guess it will be funny? It will still feel like a f–king fever dream by the time we get to the Best Picture announcement. Meanwhile, I hope everyone enjoyed The Hollywood Reporter’s “oral history of the Best Picture Fiasco,” which came out several days ago – you can read it here. What I took away from that is that Beatty is super-calm and very smart, and he was very afraid that he was going to blamed for something that was not his fault (and he was incredibly respectful towards everyone involved with Moonlight). Another takeaway: everyone hates Faye Dunaway. So at least that should be fun.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
