Batkid pulled from Oscars at last minute

This year's Oscars were supposed to centre on the theme of 'movie heroes', but one planned segment of the ceremony was missing – Batkid.

Five-year-old leukemia survivor Miles Scott was due to appear with The Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield at Sunday night’s event, before organisers cut that part at the last minute.

"I don't know if they ran out of time, or if there was something about the segment they didn't like," Miles' mother Natalie told the International Business Times. "It got pulled so quickly that we didn't have a lot of insight into what was going on."

The Academy had teamed up with the Make-a-Wish Foundation to bring Scott to the Oscars. He first became known as Batkid after fulfilling his wish in San Francisco, when some buildings were turned into Gotham City.

Scott accompanied a Batman through the streets to take on villains like Penguin and the Riddler in a stunt so popular that thousands stopped to watch and #batkid trended on Twitter.

Garfield did not attend the ceremony and, instead of his Oscars role, Scott was reportedly offered an all-expenses paid trip to Disneyland.

"Basically, because of the fluid nature of live TV production, ultimately the segment didn't work," an Academy spokesperson told Entertainmentwise.

Josh deBerge from the Make-a-Wish Foundation added: "Make-a-Wish was not involved in any way with the decision about what did not or what did make it in on-air that evening."

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Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Jared Leto and Lupita Nyong'o were the big acting winners at the 2014 Oscars, with 12 Years a Slave beating Gravity and American Hustle to take Best Picture.