The nominees for the 89th Academy Awards were announced on January 24, 2017, via global live stream from the academy.[11]La La Land received the most nominations with a record-tying fourteen (1950's All About Eve and 1997's Titanic also achieved this distinction);[12]Arrival and Moonlight came in second with eight apiece.[13][14]La La Land's Best Picture loss to Moonlight meant it set a record for most nominations without winning Best Picture.[15] Four of the five nominations for Best Original Score were by first-time nominees, the highest figure since 1967.[16]
The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on February 26, 2017.[17]Moonlight became the first film with an all-black cast and the first LGBT-themed film to win Best Picture.[18][19] In an event unprecedented in the history of the Oscars, La La Land was incorrectly announced as the Best Picture, and, a few minutes later, the error was corrected and Moonlight was declared the winner.[20]O.J.: Made in America, at 467 minutes, became the longest film to win an Academy Award, surpassing the 431-minute long War and Peace, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1969.[21] Following the five-part documentary's win, new academy rules barred any "multi-part or limited series" from being eligible for documentary categories.[22] With Casey Affleck winning the Oscar for Best Actor, he and his older brother, Ben Affleck, became the 16th pair of siblings to win Academy Awards.[23]Mahershala Ali became the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar.[24]Viola Davis became the first black person to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting with her Oscar, Emmy, and Tony wins.[25]
At the age of thirty-two years and thirty-eight days, Damien Chazelle became the youngest person to win Best Director; Norman Taurog was only two hundred and twenty-two days older than Chazelle when he won Best Director for the 1931 comedy Skippy.[26][27][28]
Kevin O'Connell finally ended the longest losing streak in Oscar history after 20 unsuccessful nominations for sound mixing, winning for Hacksaw Ridge.[29]Moonlight's Dede Gardner became the first woman to win twice for producing, following her previous Best Picture win for 12 Years a Slave.[30]
Due to the mixed reception and low ratings of the previous year's ceremony, producers David Hill and Reginald Hudlin declined to helm the Oscar production. They were replaced by Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd as producers.[42][43] Actor and comedian Chris Rock told Variety regarding if he would return to host, "someone else will do it."[44] On December 5, 2016, it was announced that Jimmy Kimmel would host the ceremony.[45] Kimmel expressed that it was truly an honor and a thrill to be asked to host Academy Awards, commenting "Mike and Jennifer have an excellent plan and their enthusiasm is infectious. I am honored to have been chosen to host the 89th and final Oscars."[46]
North American box office gross for Best Picture nominees[49]
Film
Pre-nomination (before Jan. 24)
Post-nomination (Jan. 24 – Feb. 26)
Post-awards (after Feb. 26)
Total
Hidden Figures
$85 million
$67.7 million
$16.5 million
$169.3 million
La La Land
$90.5 million
$50.5 million
$10.2 million
$151.1 million
Arrival
$95.7 million
$4.6 million
$210,648
$100.5 million
Hacksaw Ridge
$65.5 million
$1.4 million
$274,090
$67.2 million
Fences
$48.8 million
$7.7 million
$1.1 million
$57.7 million
Lion
$16.5 million
$26.3 million
$8.9 million
$51.7 million
Manchester by the Sea
$39 million
$7.9 million
$819,980
$47.7 million
Moonlight
$15.9 million
$6.4 million
$5.6 million
$27.9 million
Hell or High Water
$27 million
–
–
$27 million
Total
$483.9 million
$172.4 million
$43.6 million
$700.1 million
Average
$53.8 million
$19.2 million
$4.8 million
$77.8 million
At the time of the nominations announcement on January 24, 2017, the combined gross of the nine Best Picture nominees at the North American box offices was $483.8 million, with an average of $53.8 million per film.[49] When the nominations were announced, Arrival was the highest-grossing film among the Best Picture nominees with $95.7 million in domestic box office receipts.[50]La La Land was the second-highest-grossing film with $90.5 million,[51] followed by Hidden Figures ($85 million), Hacksaw Ridge ($65.5 million), Fences ($48.8 million), Manchester by the Sea ($39 million), Hell or High Water ($27 million), Lion ($16.5 million) and Moonlight ($15.8 million).[52]Moonlight became the second lowest-grossing film to win Best Picture award.[53][54]
Thirty-five nominations went to 13 films on the list of the top 50 grossing movies of the year. Of those 13 films, only Zootopia (3rd), Moana (15th), La La Land (45th), and Arrival (48th) were nominated for Best Picture, Best Animated Feature or any of the directing, acting or screenwriting awards.[55] The other top 50 box-office hits that earned nominations were Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (4th), The Jungle Book (5th), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (8th), Suicide Squad (10th), Doctor Strange (11th), Star Trek Beyond (24th), Trolls (25th), Passengers (30th), and Sully (32nd).[56]
Racial diversity
In the previous two years, the awards had come under scrutiny for the lack of racial diversity among the nominees in major categories, which included no actors of color being nominated.[57] After the nominees for the 89th Awards were announced on January 24, many media outlets noted the diversity of the nominations, which included a record-tying seven non-white actors and a record-setting six black actors.[58][59][60] For the first time in the academy's history, each acting category had black actors, with three nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category and three black screenwriters nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category in the same year. Also nominated was one black director, the fourth in Oscar history.[61][62][63]
The awards continued to be criticized by actors and media organizations representing non-black minorities in America. The National Hispanic Media Coalition stated that Latino actors were "not getting the opportunities to work in front of camera, and with few exceptions, in back of the camera as well." Daniel Mayeda, chair of the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, stated that the omission of Asian actors from the nominations list (with only one actor, Dev Patel, nominated) reflected "the continued lack of real opportunities for Asians in Hollywood".[64] A skit performed during the ceremony, in which a group of tourists enter the theater, led to criticism of host Kimmel when he was accused of mocking an Asian woman's name.[65]
Having previously been nominated for Doubt (2008) and The Help (2011), Viola Davis became the first African-American actress to garner three Academy Award nominations.[66][67] She went on to win the award, making her the first African-American to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting: winning a competitive Emmy, Tony, and Oscar in acting categories. Bradford Young became the first African-American to be nominated for Best Cinematography, while Joi McMillon became the first African-American to be nominated for Best Film Editing since Hugh A. Robertson for Midnight Cowboy, as well as the first black woman to be nominated for that award.[68][69][70]Octavia Spencer became the first African-American actress to be nominated after having already won before.[71]Moonlight became the first film with an all-black cast to win the Best Picture award.[19] Additionally, the ceremony had the most black winners of the Academy Awards ever.[72]
Travel ban controversy
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, who won the award for Best Foreign Language Film for The Salesman, was revealed to initially be unable to attend the ceremony due to PresidentDonald Trump's immigration ban. He boycotted the event, saying, "I have decided to not attend the Academy Awards ceremony alongside my fellow members of the cinematic community."[73] The academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs reacted to the travel ban, saying, "America should always be not a barrier but a beacon and each and every one of us knows that there are some empty chairs in this room which has made academy artists into activists."[74]
Two prominent Iranian Americans – engineer Anousheh Ansari, known as the first female space tourist, and Firouz Naderi, a former director of Solar Systems Exploration at NASA – accepted Asghar Farhadi's Oscar on his behalf at the ceremony.[75] Congratulations which had initially been tweeted to the Iranian people from the US State Department's official Persian-language Twitter account were deleted following the acceptance speech given by Firouz Naderi in which President Trump's travel ban was described as "inhumane".[76]
Best Picture announcement error
Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway came onstage to present the award for Best Picture, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Bonnie and Clyde.[77] After opening the envelope, Beatty hesitated, eventually showing it to Dunaway, who glanced at it and declared La La Land to be the winner.[78] However, more than two minutes later, as the producers of La La Land were making their acceptance speeches, Oscar crew members came on stage and took the envelopes from those assembled, explaining to them that there had been a mistake. La La Land producer Fred Berger, having heard the news, concluded his brief speech by saying "we lost, by the way".[79][80]
Beatty was then given the correct opened envelope as La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz stepped to the microphone, announced the error, stated that Moonlight had actually won the award, and took the card bearing the film's title from Beatty's hand and showed it to the camera and the audience as proof. The La La Land team, particularly Horowitz, would later be praised for their professional handling of the situation. Beatty returned to the microphone and explained that the envelope he had initially been given named Emma Stone for her actress performance in La La Land, hence his confused pause, and confirmed that Moonlight was the winner. The producers of Moonlight then came onstage, Horowitz presented the Best Picture award given to them, and they gave their acceptance speeches.[20][81][82]
According to The Hollywood Reporter, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) – the accounting firm responsible for tabulating results, preparing the envelopes, and handing them to presenters – creates two sets of envelopes, which are kept on opposite sides of the stage.[83] It is intended that each award has one primary envelope and one backup envelope that remains with one of the PwC staff in the wings. (An emergency third set of envelopes is kept at an undisclosed location until the first two sets of envelopes are confirmed to have arrived at the Oscars ceremony location safely.) Video stills from the broadcast show that Beatty and Dunaway had been given the single remaining still-unopened backup envelope for the Best Actress award as they walked onto the stage.[84]
PwC issued a statement apologizing for this error:
We sincerely apologize to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture. The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.[85]
The design of the envelopes could have been a factor. The envelopes were redesigned this year to feature red paper with gold lettering that specified the award enclosed, rather than gold paper with dark lettering. That could have made the lettering harder to read. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, not PwC, is responsible for the design and procurement of the envelopes.[86]
Brian Cullinan, the PwC accountant who gave the wrong envelope to Beatty, had been instructed not to use social media during the event; however, moments after handing over the envelope, he had tweeted a snapshot of Stone standing backstage.[87]Variety published photographs of Cullinan that were taken at the time which showed him backstage while tweeting the image.[88]
Critical reviews
The show received a mixed reception from media publications. Some media outlets were more critical and complained of repetitive jokes; Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly complained that the show "didn't know when to stop and didn't know when to bail on stuff that wasn't working",[89] and The Oregonian Kristi Turnquist agreed and especially noted the repeated segments featuring actors discussing their favorite films at length to be "tedious and ill-advised".[90] Writing for Time television critic Daniel D'Addario bemoaned that, "It was unfortunate that the evening's host didn't seem to share the evening's general embrace of humanity."[91]
Some media outlets reviewed the broadcast more positively with some praise for Kimmel. Variety television critic Sonia Saraiya praised Kimmel's performance writing that he "found a way to balance the telecast between that sensibility – the treacly self-satisfaction of sweeping orchestrals and tap dancing starlets."[92] Chief television critics, Robert Bianco of USA Today and Frazier Moore from Associated Press applauded Kimmel's hosting saying he "was up to the challenge" while Moore added that the ceremony's induction of the montage of moviegoers shows that "Hollywood can surmount its share of walls."[93][94] Brian Lowry of CNN gave an average critique of the ceremony but acclaimed Kimmel's hosting.[95] Many critics praised the playful jabs between Kimmel and Matt Damon, who was introduced as Ben Affleck's unnamed guest as well as music being played over him.[96]
Rating and reception
The American telecast on ABC drew an average of 33 million people over its length, which was a 4% decrease from the previous year.[10] The show also earned lower Nielsen ratings compared to the previous ceremony with 22.4% of households watching over a 36 share.[97] In addition, it received a lower 18–49 demo rating with a 9.1 rating over a 26 share.[98] It also had the lowest U.S. viewership since the 80th ceremony in 2008, which averaged 32 million viewers.[99] Nonetheless, it was the eighth most watched television broadcast in the United States in 2017.[100]
The slide for Janet Patterson, an Australian costume designer, mistakenly used a photograph of Australian producer Jan Chapman, who is still alive.[105]
^AMPAS revoked Russell's nomination after discovering that he had contacted voters for the award by telephone in violation of campaigning regulations.[32]
^ Referred to only as Ben Affleck's "guest" in this segment.[41]
^"Statement from PwC". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. February 27, 2017. Archived from the original on February 27, 2017. Retrieved February 27, 2017.
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