Despite all the big wins and magic moments at Sunday’s Academy Awards, Oscar night was a big disappointment for one small superhero.
Batkid, a.k.a. Miles Scott, the five year-old cancer survivor whose Make-a-Wish Foundation moment saw San Francisco transformed into Gotham City for one magical day last October, was meant to appear on the Oscars stage as part of a special segment in keeping with the show’s “heroes” theme.
But his appearance was sadly cancelled the day of the awards, when presenter Andrew Garfield — who was set to introduce the tiny defender of justice — pulled out at the last minute. The mashup of movie clips meant to precede Scott’s cameo was instead presented by “Captain America” actor Chris Evans, who apparently hadn’t planned to attend the ceremony but was able to fill in on the fly.
As if this weren’t heart-wrenching enough on its own, the Mashable report on the Batkid snub has a photo from the Saturday rehearsal for the awards shows Miles standing onstage amid a set designed to look like nighttime Gotham, with the word “BATKID” prominently featured.
To Garfield’s credit, the actor would not have pulled out of the event for spurious reasons. Additionally, it’s unclear why, given Evans was filling in for Garfield anyway that the erstwhile Captain America couldn’t induct Batkid. As of this time, there has been no comment from the Academy.
By way of apology for the snafu, the Academy reportedly sent Batkid and his family to Disneyland instead.
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