You guys remember Batkid, right? Miles Scott, the 5-year-old who’s beating Leukemia who received the key to San Francisco from dork Mayor Ed Lee back in November, was scheduled to make an appearance on the Academy Awards telecast this past Sunday. Because, as Jared Leto’s acceptance speech proved, there’s nothing people in Hollywood like more than to believe that their pageantry actually has the power to cure the sick and free the oppressed.
Just one problem: Miles’s appearance got nixed at the last minute, leaving him all dressed up with nowhere to go. Guess they had to make room for more pointless montages?
Miles’ mother, Natalie Scott, said that Miles was invited to participate in the star-studded ceremony, and the Scott family traveled to Los Angeles from Northern California for what was supposed to be a big day. Miles – outfitted in a tuxedo — attended a rehearsal at the Dolby Theater on Saturday, but on Sunday morning the Scotts were told he would no longer be part of the ceremony.
“I don’t know if they ran out of time, of if there was something about the segment they didn’t like,” Scott said. “It got pulled so quickly that we didn’t have a lot of insight into what was going on.” [IBTimes]
The Academy reportedly offered an all-expenses paid trip to Disneyland as an apology, which is cool, I guess. Come on, you couldn’t even put him in the selfie?? Weaksauce, Academy. The weakest.
Meanwhile, if Page Six is to believed (and they are, at least twice a year), Miles getting cut was all Andrew Garfield’s fault.
“The academy was going to make him an official superhero during the Oscar ceremony. Andrew Garfield was going to appoint him ‘Batkid.’ But, in the middle of the dress rehearsal, Garfield decided he didn’t like his lines,” said a well-placed source.
“Garfield refused to go by the script. He came up with his own lines. The producers felt that Garfield’s [rewrites] were not appropriate. Garfield had a tantrum. He stormed off. Miles and his family, who were at the rehearsal, were devastated.”
“Garfield was such a spoiled brat that he didn’t even want to be a presenter,” said my source. The academy had to call “Captain America” star Chris Evans to sub at the last minute.
Garfield, such a prima donna, always with the “I hate Mondays” this, and “lasagna is delicious” that. Of course, take the entire Page Six account with a grain of salt, because it starts with the epic line “Not even a 5-year-old boy with cancer could persuade egotistical actor Andrew Garfield to be a presenter at the Academy Awards,” which seems, I don’t know, a tad melodramatic.
It goes onto say “The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences had arranged with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to further make Miles’ dreams come true,” when Make-A-Wish is on record as saying the Academy went to the Scott family directly. So there’s that. Also, the guy who wrote the Page Six story is named “Richard Johnson,” which I refuse to believe is a real name.
UPDATE: According to E!, “Andrew Garfield understood that his segment had to be omitted, and he drove to Disneyland on Monday to spend time with 5-year-old Miles Scott (Batkid) and his family.”