London Theater Pranks Customers With Oscar-Inspired ‘La La Land’/‘Moonlight’ Mix-Up
Last night viewers shuffled in for a late showing of Moonlight at the Rio cinema in the Dalston neighborhood of London’s Hackney region. As they settled down with their bags of Licorice Allsorts, Sherbet Fountains, and Jelly Babies (all of which are, incredibly, real candies), they were greeted by a surprise on screen. Instead of the opening strains of a chopped-and-screwed remix of Boris Gardiner‘s “Every N----- Is a Star,” however, they were greeted by the bright blue sky and the first twenty seconds of “Another Day of Sun,” the opening number of none other than La La Land! “Cor, bit cheeky, innit?” the audience said in perfect unison, in my imagination.
Time Out London reveals that while the moviegoers may not have reacted in such a charmingly English fashion, they did recognize that the snafu was meant as a nod to Sunday night’s Best Picture change-up at the Oscars. Time Out reports that the audience broke into a round of laughter and applause straightaway, and a representative from the theater explained, “It wasn’t the actual feature film, but a few seconds from a teaser trailer. Then we shut it down, and did a bit of fumbling to make it look like we made a mistake.” Brits, those incurable pranksters!
That's a cute gag, and certainly less shocking than those stories where an inattentive movie theater employee accidentally screens the food orgy from Sausage Party to an auditorium of children jazzed to see Finding Dory. Hey, projectionists like to have fun too!