Behind-the-scenes photos from the 2024 Oscars reveal the Academy went to great lengths to prevent a repeat of the Best Picture blunder seven years ago.
For those who missed it, La La Land was mistakenly announced as the winning film at the 2017 Academy Awards.
Moonlight had actually won the gong, but the error wasn’t caught until the La La Land cast and crew had already hit the stage to accept the award.
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Producer Jordan Horowitz was then handed the correct winner card and announced the award had actually gone to Moonlight.
It became one of the most shocking moments in Oscars history and the question on everyone’s lips was, of course, ‘How did it happen?’
It was later revealed Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, who were presenting the award, were mistakenly handed the Best Actress envelope before going onstage.
When they opened it and saw the words ‘Emma Stone, “La La Land”‘ printed there, they assumed the flick had won Best Picture and announced it.
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Many designers and typography experts came out in the wake of the scandal to say the whole debacle could have been avoided with a few simple edits to the winner cards.
They pointed out that everything on the cards was written in the same font, the same size and boldness, making it hard to discern the most important details.
Some argued that if the card included the name of the category and had Stone’s name had been printed in bold font, it would have been clear to Beatty and Dunaway that they had the wrong card.
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Now it appears the Academy has taken that advice on board.
Searchlight Pictures posted behind-the-scenes photos of the card that announced Emma Stone’s latest Best Actress win, which looked very different to the cards from 2017.
The new card includes the category printed in small font at the top, the winner’s name in large, bold text and extra detail in smaller font below.
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Social media users speculated the changes were made to avoid a repeat of the 2017 blunder.
“Them adding the category at the top, putting the name in bold, AND changing the font size,” one person wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“I feel like the new version just makes so much more sense, like duh,” another wrote.
A third said, “The Moonlight incident really made them fix the typography.”