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Al Pacino Says Awkward Best Picture Delivery Was “a Choice by Producers”

The 'Godfather' star omitted the nominees' names because he was following the Academy's script for the night, he says. "I just want to be clear it was not my intention to omit [nominees]," Pacino said in a statement issued Monday.

Throughout the night, the Academy had been paying tribute to the individual best picture nominees with video clips, and producers felt that those presentations had sufficiently done the job of acknowledging the films. In the interest of keeping the show from running long, Oscars producer Molly McNearney told Variety that, “We did not give [Pacino] a clip package. The hubbub over Pacino’s Oscar night delivery overshadowed another piece of news the actor made on Monday, the announcement that his memoir, Sonny Boy, will be published this fall by Penguin Press.

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