U.K. Cinema Spoofs 2017 Oscars Gaffe By Playing ‘La La Land’ In ‘Moonlight’ Screening
A London cinema turned the 2017 Oscars blunder into comic relief by pranking their audience with the intro of "La La Land" during their "Moonlight" screening. The staff behind The Rio Cinema in Dalton took the recent Oscars gaffe to a whole new level when they actually pulled their own spoof to the audience' surprise. Moviegoers that Monday night didn't know they were in for a treat.
So just as what happened Sunday night at the 2017 Oscars, the single-screen community cinema played the start of "La La Land" for 20 minutes before correctly playing the rightful film which moviegoers expected to watch that night, "Moonlight." The cinema's General Manager Andrew Woodyatt told Metro.co.uk, "It would have been quite awkward if they hadn't got the joke - but luckily they did." Woodyatt said they played the "La La Land" trailers to the packed screening, not the actual opening of the film and described the reaction of "everyone in the audience were 'hang on a moment, something's wrong here.'" He said, "We stopped it, make it look as though we made a mistake, and then started Moonlight." In return, the unsuspecting audience gave this U.K. cinema "a huge round of applause and everyone loved it."
The 2017 Oscars snafu that the U.K. cinema bothered to prank their audience with happened when presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced "La La Land" as the Best Picture winner. The recipients already walked up to the stage and even gave their acceptance speech until "La La Land" producer Jordan Horowitz took it upon himself to announce that "Moonlight" won Best Picture. Pricewaterhouse Coopers owned up the blame and issued an apology Monday.
Oscars stage manager Gary Natoli said the PwC partners Brian Cullinan, who mistakenly handed Beatty the wrong envelope, and Martha Ruiz just "froze" when the fiasco happened. Natoli also criticized Cullinan for "taking pictures backstage when he should not have been, and not paying attention."
