Oscar fiasco: Blundering accountants disciplinned – is it enough?

The Wrap spoke with Academy Award stage manager Gary Natoli, who believes that though it was Cullinan who handed Warren Beatty the wrong envelope (likely distracted while tweeting a pic of Best Actress victor Emma Stone), they’re both to blame for the delayed reaction time.

Cullinan was photographed using his mobile phone around the time he was handing the Best Picture envelope to Beatty.

Cullinan and Ruiz “froze” when La La Land was incorrectly announced the best picture victor over Moonlight, longtime Oscars producer Gary Natoli tells the Wrap.

The president of the film academy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs confirmed on Wednesday (1 March) that the accountants will not be employed to carry out the role again, adding that accountancy firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) long-running association with the Oscars is also under review in the aftermath of the incident.

Brian Cullinan was too busy tweeting and sharing a photo of Best Actress victor Emma Stone on his Twitter account to notice his mistake.

Are you surprised that both Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz are keeping their jobs?

“We sincerely apologize to Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Jimmy Kimmel, ABC, and the Academy, none of whom was at fault for last night’s errors”.

But will PwC continue to tabulate the Oscar votes for the academy, as it has done since 1934?

The accountants also had a “back-up” stack of envelopes for their colleague on the opposite side.

Backstage crew were “trying to get Brian to go onstage and he wouldn’t go”, Natoli said.

The firm said that although Cullinan was responsible for handing Beatty the wrong envelope, both he and Ruiz failed to enact protocols to rectify the situation “quickly enough”. Cullinan is holding at least one red envelope.

Later that night, the photo was deleted from Cullinan’s Twitter page.

The best picture mistake was not the only error that evening. What? I looked out and I saw a member of Pricewaterhouse coming on the stage, and I was, like, Oh, no, what-what’s happening? “I was still clueless about what had actually taken place”.

Many are calling the decision to fire PwC partner Martha Ruiz sexist and a miscarriage of justice. “He is very upset about this mistake”, PwC chairman Tim Ryan told Variety.

PwC has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons after La La Land was initially named best picture instead of Moonlight.

Cullinan, who’s been a part of the Oscar balloting team since 2014, has yet to comment on the blunder.