Writers Guild Awards Preview – Original and Adapted Shuffle, a Musical and a Posthumous Contender

On January 4th, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) will announce its awards nominations for 2016. As far as I can tell, there are no buzzed screenplays that have been disqualified from consideration. And generally speaking, the WGA doesn’t stray TOO far outside the realm of the movies at the center of the Best Picture race.

Here are the scripts that are not eligible:

Finding Dory
Lion
The Lobster
Miss Sloane
Zootopia
Florence Foster Jenkins
The Lobster

Gold Derby has the whole scoop if you want to read more about it. Of those, Lion is the one I suspect has the best shot at an Oscar nod, along with The Lobster, maybe Florence Foster Jenkins, maybe Zootopia. Inside Out made it in last year even though it wasn’t eligible at the WGA.

Scripts make an impact either by being dragged along with a strong Best Picture contender or else standing out in their own right. Sometimes they stand in as a symbolic gesture, like Amy Schumer getting for Trainwreck. It’s admirable that the WGA values comedy writing when the Academy doesn’t particularly.

We can start by looking at the films we’re pretty sure will be considered because of their strength in the Best Picture race. One important thing to note: Moonlight and Loving are considered original screenplays by the WGA, but the Academy recently ruled that both will be considered as adapted screenplays at the Oscars.

We’ll begin with Adapted Screenplay. Here is a list of most likely nominees in order of how locked I think they are.

1. Arrival, Eric Heisserer’s screenplay of Ted Chiang’s short story, The Story of Your Life. A labor of love that took more than a decade, Arrival does almost the impossible by bringing a cerebral idea fully to life.
2. Jay Cocks, Martin Scorsese, Silence – Cocks is well known enough to bump him up but it’s not a sure thing. We don’t know how the industry is reacting but I’m betting the prestige of the project will help.
3. Allison Schroeder, Theodore Melfi, Hidden Figures – a hunch that this will be strong with the writers, although you don’t know.
4. August Wilson, Fences – it’s a long shot for a posthumous nod, but this will be a good test to see whether the Academy will do so.
5. Todd Komarnicki, Sully – this could help give the film a bit of a boost.
6. Andrew Knight, Robert Shenkkan, Hacksaw Ridge – we still don’t know how the guilds will respond to many films, including this one.
7. Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals – I don’t know if he’ll make it into the Oscars but it seems like a good bet for the WGA.
8. Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship – it’s quite a brilliant adaptation but I do not know if it can compete with some of the others.
9. Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls – the sentimental value of this, plus its source material, could push it through.
10. Ben Affleck, Live by Night – it’s a pretty good adaptation of a great novel.

As we move on to Original Screenplay, we see that’s really where so much of the Best Picture heat is this year. It’s an extremely tough category to call. This is a big test for La La Land, which is still technically the frontrunner to win Best Picture. It might get in here and not at the Oscars, or vice versa. It’s tricky with musicals and they hardly ever get in for screenplay. So if it does get in, that bodes well for it being the film to beat.

1. Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea – as far as I can tell right now, no one can beat this for original screenplay at the Oscars, but that’s only because Moonlight will be put in Adapted. If it weren’t, Moonlight would be your winner and indeed might win at the WGA, throwing the whole thing off and making Adapted unpredictable.
2. Barry Jenkins, Moonlight – it will be in Adapted at the Oscars, so it could not win here to make way for Lonergan, whose time to accept awards seems to have arrived.
3. Damian Chazelle, La La Land – I think it makes it in, at least with WGA and probably with the Academy. If it’s going to win Best Picture it will need this nomination. And it deserves it. The writing is delightful.
4. Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water – this is a threat up one side and down the other. It absolutely could be the winner at the WGA and the Oscars. Right now, it looks like it will be upstaged but something about it makes me think – this is one to watch. Sheridan was WGA-nominated last year for Sicario
5. Jeff Nichols, Loving – again, it will be in Adapted at the Oscars but should get recognized here in Original.
6. Mike Mills, 20th Century Women – While this film was shut out of the SAG, it seems like the kind of movie that the industry will appreciate. If it can bump La La Land it can get in here.
7. Noah Oppenheim, Jackie – another tricky one. This seems to be a polarizing film but those who love it REALLY love it.

That’s the best I got for the Writers Guild. How would you predict these?

won WGA | won Oscar
*nominated for Best Pic

+won Best Pic