WGA Nominees and Winners

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Re: WGA Nominees and Winners

Post by OscarGuy »

Wes Anderson has no chance at Best Picture or Best Director. Original Screenplay is the only place they can honor him and Academy's recent history suggests he's more likely to win here than Linklater or Inarritu who are both stronger competitors in the top races.

The Imitation Game also won the USC Scripter Award, which is not an insignificant win. The only reason Theory of Everything won at BAFTA was because it was their choice for Best British Film. I don't think that give it a leg-up over Imitation at the Oscars as Harvey may see the writing on the wall for his film and press for at least one award.
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Re: WGA Nominees and Winners

Post by nightwingnova »

I think that Birdman should beat Hotel for best original screenplay because the Academy tends not to award screenplay prizes to comedies. Boyhood has not gotten as much notice for its screenplay.

Imitation winning tonight is a sign that it can hold off American Sniper for adapted screenplay. Sniper's popularity could give it an edge. But since the Academy likes to award "important" work, and that the advertising seems to be emphasizing Imitation's importance to gay history, I think Imitation will hold on. Theory doesn't seem to have either the popularity ($32M domestic gross vs. Imitation's $77M) or the "significance" to be out in front. Ditto for Whiplash.
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Re: WGA Nominees and Winners

Post by Big Magilla »

As I keep saying, there's a first time for everything. The guilds are the guilds and the Academy is the Academy. I think the makeup of the Academy more closely resembles BAFTA than the guilds and BAFTA gave their top award to Boyhood which had been considered the front-runner all along. There's a lot of cross-membership within BAFTA and the Academy and it's not just British members of the Academy. There are more Hollywood members of BAFTA than we realize. I was surprised to learn that Wes Anderson was a BAFTA member when he stated so in his BAFTA acceptance speech, read by Ralph Fiennes in his absence.

My crystal ball tells me The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game will repeat at the Oscars in their respective writing categories. Budapest will also win Production Design, Costume Design, Makeup and possibly Score to win the most awards of the evening, but The Imitation Game will not win anything beyond Adapted Screenplay. American Sniper will take Sound Editing, Whiplash Supporting Actor and Sound Mixing and Selma Best Song. Inarritu will win Best Director and Birdman will also win Best Actor and Cinematography, but Boyhood will win Best Picture as well as Supporting Actress and Editing. Unless it wins Best Score, The Theory of Everything will be the only Best Picture nominee to go home empty-handed.
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Re: WGA Nominees and Winners

Post by The Original BJ »

Since the beginning of the 4-Guild era (i.e. when SAG began handing out the Ensemble prize), no movie has managed to take the Best Picture Oscar without winning at least one of the major Guilds. So, at least consider that fact when deciding whether to hang on to Boyhood as your Best Picture prediction.

I still imagine this will be a very tight Oscar race in Original Screenplay, with the added competition from the Globe-winning Birdman script thrown into the mix.

On the Adapted side, The Imitation Game wins its first significant prize of the season -- it practically HAD to win here in order to stay in the Oscar race in this category. But I still think it could end up like The Hours did, winning here but losing the Oscar to the war film from a vet that surged late in the race, if not to a candidate it didn't have to compete against here (Theory of Everything or Whiplash).
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Re: WGA Nominees and Winners

Post by Big Magilla »

The winners are The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game.
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Re: WGA Nominees

Post by Sabin »

I wasn't talking about drawing anything from these nominations. I meant in the recent press.
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Re: WGA Nominees

Post by OscarGuy »

Selma wasn't eligible, so we cannot really draw anything about its strength with the writers from these nominations. As for adapted, I'd see what USC picks in its scripter nominations. They are often more accurate than WGA.
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Re: WGA Nominees

Post by Sabin »

Things we do know:

- Paul Thomas Anderson probably isn't getting nominated for Inherent Vice. If we didn't know it before, we know it now. Also, Still Alice is likely going to end up a sole nominee.

- Best Adapted Screenplay has gone from a wasteland of "They will nominate the only things they can" to a battleground. The Imitation Game and Gone Girl seem like locks. Whiplash is a good bet (and IMO a possible upset winner). Then The Theory of Everything, Wild, Guardians of the Galaxy, and American Sniper for the last two spots. I'm actually going to go with Wild and American Sniper. I haven't seen either one yet (they're not at the top of my pile) but American Sniper seems to be doing a little better than expected, The Theory of Everything is a very thin film and it failed to get an ASC nomination which I thought was a sure thing.

- Nightcrawler surge continues. Remember when we weren't sure if it was getting anything? Now it has to rank above Foxcatcher and Selma in likelihood of getting a writing nomination.

- It blows my mind that Selma is getting more damage for accuracy from a historian than Foxcatcher is getting from Mark Schultz, a guy who is coming across as legitimately deranged in his tweets.
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Re: WGA Nominees

Post by The Original BJ »

Not much in the way of surprises here (aside from the Guardians of the Galaxy nomination, which got a nice eye roll from me this morning.)

The question seems to be, do the ineligibles just replace the obvious exclusions with Oscar (as many on other sites are suggesting), or might the writers still have a surprise or two up their sleeve (as they often do.)

In Original, Birdman for Whiplash is an obvious trade. But might one of the other candidates (Foxcatcher or Nightcrawler) still be vulnerable? At this point, it's hard to have any idea what's going on with Selma's candidacy, and screenplay admittedly seems like one of its weaker links (though still, in my book, worthy). And though Mr. Turner hasn't made much of a splash outside the critics awards, I still will continue to point out that when he has a movie in contention, Mike Leigh nearly always gets cited by the writers. A Most Violent Year, though, is probably out -- they really shouldn't have waited until Dec. 31 to release that one, I think.

I'm with flipp -- Wild clearly merits Adapted citation in my book, and in fact, I think it's the best of the candidates this year. I would hate to see it lose out to such uninspiring fare as American Sniper and The Theory of Everything. I do still wonder if Theory of Everything might be vulnerable here -- it's exactly the kind of milquetoast nominee the writers often leave off, even when the movie does well elsewhere (Ray made Picture/Director in a year of five and the writers still passed.)
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Re: WGA Nominees

Post by flipp525 »

Mister Tee wrote:The question is, with Whiplash and Theory of Everything both needing a spot, what else gets removed? Is it clearly Wild?
Honestly, I really hope not. To knock Wild off for the nothingness of a screenplay that is The Theory of Everything's would be ridiculous.

Wild's screenplay played it wise by blending Cheryl's journey forward so closely with her journey back through the past. It was just a really seamless effort. Hypnotically tight construction.

The Theory of Everything was a paint-by-numbers nerd biopic, so unsurprising it felt like watching the trailer and watching the actual film was the same experience.
Last edited by flipp525 on Wed Jan 07, 2015 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: WGA Nominees

Post by Mister Tee »

With Birdman and Mr. Turner omitted, the last spot was pretty clearly either Foxcatcher or A Most Violent year. I'd hoped the choice would go the other way.

Guardians is of a piece with Knocked Up, Star Trek and other populist choices made by the portion of the Guild that works in mainstream commercial product. It'll presumably get knocked out a week hence. The question is, with Whiplash and Theory of Everything both needing a spot, what else gets removed? Is it clearly Wild?
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WGA Nominees and Winners

Post by Mister Tee »

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Boyhood, Written by Richard Linklater; IFC Films
Foxcatcher, Written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman; Sony Pictures Classics
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Screenplay by Wes Anderson; Story by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness; Fox Searchlight
Nightcrawler, Written by Dan Gilroy; Open Road Films
Whiplash, Written by Damien Chazelle; Sony Pictures Classics


ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
American Sniper, Written by Jason Hall; Based on the book by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice; Warner Bros.
Gone Girl, Screenplay by Gillian Flynn; Based on her novel; 20th Century Fox
Guardians of the Galaxy, Written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman; Based on the Marvel comic by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
The Imitation Game, Written by Graham Moore; Based on the book Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges; The Weinstein Company
Wild, Screenplay by Nick Hornby; Based on the book by Cheryl Strayed; Fox Searchlight
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