Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are apparently getting a second chance at this whole "Best Picture" thing

By William Hughes | March 2, 2018 | 4:16am

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Hollywood loves a redemption story, which might explain why two people at the center of last year’s Best Picture debacle at the Oscars are getting a second chance. No, not PricewaterhouseCooper’s Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz, the people who handed off the wrong envelope and set the whole thing off; those two will presumably be kept under lock and key this week, in whatever place shamed accountants are sent to toil away the rest of their careers. But TMZ reports that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, the bickering faces of one of the biggest Oscar fuck-ups in movie history, will be getting a second shot at presenting the Academy Award for Best Picture on Sunday night.

Beatty and Dunaway were reportedly seen rehearsing for the gig at the Dolby Theater earlier tonight, trying out joking lines about the mishap, and presumably looking very, very closely at any pieces of paper that were handed to them. The choice to bring the pair back for this year’s ceremony is presumably both the Academy’s way of acknowledging last year’s mistake, and to show that there’s no hard feelings against either actor. Meanwhile, if you need a reminder of just how chaotic it all was when La La Land (briefly) won the Oscar last year, you can always check out The Hollywood Reporter’s recent oral history of the fateful moments, which includes Beatty absolutely refusing to hand back the envelope he was given, lest someone try to stick him with the blame for the monumental goof.