- Title: An unforgettable Oscars mishap, the winners, losers & blockbuster movies of 2017
- Date: 29th November 2017
- Summary: CANNES, FRANCE (FILE - MAY 28, 2017) (REUTERS) RED CARPET STEPS AND CANNES FILM FESTIVAL POSTER
- Embargoed: 13th December 2017 12:44
- Keywords: Berlin Guardians of the Galaxy IT Venice The Square Cannes Oscar mix up Faye Dunaway Moonlight The Shape of Water Wonder Woman
- Location: VARIOUS
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- Country: Various
- Topics: Celebrities,Arts / Culture / Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA00C79JQL3H
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: 2017 has seen its fair share of hit movies but perhaps the most notorious story of the year came with the biggest blunder in Oscars history.
African-American coming-of-age tale "Moonlight" won the Oscar for best picture on February 26 on a big night for Hollywood diversity that was overshadowed by an embarrassing onstage gaffe over the top award.
In a mishap that caused uproar and confusion, presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway initially announced that romantic musical "La La Land", the presumed favourite for best picture, had won.
The mistake was not rectified until the "La La Land" cast and producers were on stage giving their acceptance speeches. It was left to the musical's producer, Jordan Horowitz, to put things right.
"Guys, guys, I'm sorry. No. There's a mistake," Horowitz said. "'Moonlight,' you guys won best picture. This is not a joke."
Accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, who oversaw the ballots, said the presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope.
Accountant Brian Cullinan, who media reports said had been tweeting backstage shortly before, gave Beatty and Dunaway the wrong envelope for the movie industry's top award, the accounting firm said in a statement.
It was a good night for some of the "La La Land" cast, however, when Emma Stone won her first Oscar for her lead role as a struggling actress who falls in love with a jazz musician in the movie.
The actress beat previous Oscar-winners Natalie Portman and Meryl Streep as well as France's Isabelle Huppert and Irish-Ethiophian Ruth Negga for the accolade.
Casey Affleck won the best actor Oscar for his role as a grief-stricken father in family drama "Manchester by the Sea."
It was the first Oscar for Affleck, the younger brother of "Argo" director and actor Ben Affleck.
Affleck's understated performance as a taciturn working man who unexpectedly has to look after his teenage nephew beat challenges from Denzel Washington and Ryan Gosling to win the Academy Award.
Affleck swept awards in the run-up to the Oscars, taking home a Golden Globe and numerous trophies from film critics groups.
Outside of the Oscars, "The Square", a Swedish movie about the curator of a museum filled with grotesquely pretentious conceptual art, beat stiff competition to win the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
Critics hailed the movie by writer-director Ruben Ostlund as "high-wire cinema" that veers between comedy and thriller with moments of pure surrealism, though some said it could easily have shed part of its 2 hours and 22 minutes running time.
The film's highlight is a dinner for the museum's well-to-do patrons, with a performance artist leaping from table to table impersonating an ape in a bizarre, tense and ultimately violent scene.
A Hungarian love story called "On Body and Soul" about two lonely hearts working in a slaughterhouse in Budapest won the Golden Bear for best film in February at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.
"This film is approachable only with a generous heart," director Ildiko Enyedi told the audience at the awards ceremony ending the 10-day Berlinale, which showcased 18 films in competition and 403 in sidebar screens.
Jury president Paul Verhoeven, a Dutch director and producer, said the seven-member panel had fallen in love with the film because it reminded people of something too often forgotten in everyday life: compassion.
Mexican director Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water", a dark fairy tale in which a mute cleaning lady falls in love with an aquatic creature, won the Golden Lion award for best film at the Venice Film Festival in September.
The film beat contenders including George Clooney's "Suburbicon" and Alexander Payne's "Downsizing" at the end of a 10-day, high-quality and star-studded movie marathon that critics said showed Venice was now on an equal footing with the widely revered Cannes film festival.
The "Star Wars" movie franchise parted ways with directors this year, with Colin Trevorrow removed from the studio's scheduled 2019 film "Star Wars: Episode IX." He is being replaced by "The Force Awakens" director JJ Abrams who is due to write and direct the movie.
Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd. in a statement blamed differing visions for the project on why Trevorrow was removed.
It was the second "Star Wars" project to lose a director this year. Disney in June said that film makers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had left the upcoming Han Solo "Star Wars" spin-off movie project due to creative differences. They were replaced by Hollywood veteran Ron Howard, the Oscar-winning director of "A Beautiful Mind."
Walt Disney Co.'s live-action adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast," which was one of the most anticipated movies of the year, featured a gay character for the first time in Disney's history.
The film's director, Bill Condon, announced that it would feature a gay character - LeFou, the goofy sidekick to main villain Gaston.
However, major cinema chains in Muslim-majority Malaysia postponed the release of the "Beauty and the Beast" and an evangelist preacher in the U.S. called for a boycott of the film because of the gay character, which resulted in a movie theatre in Alabama saying it would not screen the film.
"Beauty and the Beast" went on to become the highest grossing film of 2017, breaking through the one billion dollar worldwide gross mark.
"The Fate of the Furious", a movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel, was another to break through the one billion mark as well as computer animated movie "Despicable Me 3".
"Spider-Man: Homecoming" was another huge success in the action-adventure genre, with British actor Tom Holland starring as the lead Peter Parker/Spider-Man hero.
"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2", featuring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper returning to their roles as a group of heroic misfits protecting the galaxy from villainy, repeated the first movie's success and performed strongly at the box office, drawing in more than $860 million worldwide.
"Wonder Woman", starring Gal Gadot, proved another high grossing success in the superhero genre as did "Logan", which followed an aging member of the "X-Men" Wolverine defending his daughter from villainous cyborgs.
A more recent box office success came with the remake of Stephen King supernatural horror tale "It" about a child-eating clown, which surpassed expectations and became one of the highest grossing films of the year. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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