Sometimes a joke is too tempting to resist. That was the attitude of UK’s Rio cinema in Dalston, who saw a clever opportunity to play off the wildest mess-up in Oscars’ history at a recent Moonlight screening.
The Rio staff played the first 20 seconds of La La Land to the Moonlight crowd, who apparently got the joke immediately and burst into laughter.
Props to @riocinema in #Dalston for playing the first 20 seconds of La La Land immediately before last night's screening of Moonlight pic.twitter.com/2ZLllrnPFq
— DUKER (@sophiedukebox) February 28, 2017
“It wasn’t the actual feature film, but a few seconds from a teaser trailer,” the Rio’s duty manager told Time Out UK by phone. “Then we shut it down, and did a bit of fumbling to make it look like we made a mistake.”
Accountants PricewaterhouseCooper has since taken full responsibility for the blunder, when co-presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway mistakenly announced La La Land as Best Picture over the rightful winner Moonlight. Barry Jenkins’ tender film has seen a dramatic increase at the UK box office thanks to its dramatic Oscar win.
