The Adapted Screenplay category is painfully slim this year, while the Original Screenplay category is STACKED and packed and crowded. These nominations are theoretically supposed to honor both the source material and the screenplay. They sometimes hold to this and other times don’t. These look like a pretty good bet for WGA and perhaps Oscar, give or take a Joker.
And don’t be surprised if Greta Gerwig wins this. The win SHOULD go to either Jojo Rabbit or The Irishman, but I suspect all of the press about women being shut out will influence this. The Two Popes could also win. Or they could all split and they go for the lone female. And honestly, if you wanted to give any award to this movie for any reason? It would be her adaptation, which is interesting and unique.
At the Scripter ceremony, unlike the Oscars, both the adapter and the adapted are nominated and honored. That is why this year’s finalists are:
Matthew Carnahan and Mario Correa for Dark Waters based on the New York Times Magazine article “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare” by Nathaniel Rich
Steven Zaillian for The Irishman based on the nonfiction work I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt
Taika Waititi for JoJo Rabbit based on the novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens
Greta Gerwig for Little Women based on the novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott
Anthony McCarten for The Two Popes based on his play The Pope
Since 2016, USC Libraries has also presented a Scripter Award for best television adaptation. This year’s finalists are:
Phoebe Waller-Bridge for the first episode of Fleabag based on her one-woman play of the same name
Joel Fields and Steven Levenson for the episode “Nowadays” from Fosse/Verdon based on the biography Fosse by Sam Wasson
Emerald Fennell for the episode “Nice and Neat” from Killing Eve based on the novel Codename Villanelle by Luke Jennings
Susannah Grant, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman for the first episode of Unbelievable based on the article “An Unbelievable Story of Rape” by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong
Damon Lindelof and Cord Jefferson for the episode “This Extraordinary Being” from Watchmen based on the comic book series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
Finalists were chosen from 61 film and 58 television adaptations. The winners of both awards will be announced at a black-tie dinner ceremony on Saturday, Jan. 25 at USC’s historical Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library.
How did The Pope become The Two Popes? did he add an extra Pope to his story? One Pope was not exciting enough so he thought he would really spice things up by adding another Pope.
You’re not familiar with the story eh? It’s based on a true story.
Yes, I know it’s (mostly) based on a true story. I was just wondering why he changed the title from The Pope to The Two Popes.
Two popes are better than one, surely… :))
I liked Cats. It’s horny AF. Fascinating and sick. I am happy they made it.
About the scripter: Greta is winning this, I’m telling you now.
The Irishman deserves it as well.
The 2 Popes and Dark Waters are OK, and of course Jojo Rabbit is awful and the script is the worst part of it. We will look back in a couple of years and say WTF.
Check the LITTLE WOMEN reviews, peeps. Basically all top critics from top publications single out the adapted screenplay as the strongest suit of the film so I’m not surprised that Gerwig is doing well in that category even if nowhere else.
Weird to think that technically CATS could have registered here since it is based on an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that is based on T.S. Eliot’s poems. But the writing has been on the wall about this one since that first trailer and now critics are just confirming what we all kinda expected : that it is an epic artistic miscalculation. Now its next problem will be that I think once word spreads that it is (perceived to be) creepy, they can kiss the fam business goodbye so this could actually be a major BO flop, as well. I never really cared for the project itself but I do feel bad for the class act cast, the likes of Ian McKellen, Judi Dench and Idris Elba deserved better than what is bound to be an embarrassing career low for all of them.
P.S. Not to sound too harsh but the studio made two huge mistakes here : one if they insisted on a film adaptation it should have been animated or nothing and two once they went ahead with the live action plans, they should have recognised the massive creative undertaking this project had to be and hire a director accordingly. In my opinion Tom Hooper can deliver rather good, performance-driven chamber pieces (The King’s Speech, The Danish Girl) but he could already barely pull off Les Miserables that was still a pretty straightforward literary musical adaptation seeped in history, the main reason why Cats would have required a proper visionary auteur to have a fighting chance here and Hooper may have his virtues but being a visionary auteur is not one of them. They would have needed Julie Taymor or Baz Luhrmann or Ava DuVernay here, Hooper was simply not the right director for this. My two cents.
Here’s the thing, CATS stinks. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and the best directors and writers in the world couldn’t turn a fundamentally lame play into a good film.
It’s going to have its audience.
Pete Hammond loved it. He is a fan of the musical, and thought it was an excellent adaptation to the big screen.
Most negative reviews I read regularly have three problems:
1. The plot makes no sense. Well, duh. It’s Cats. It’s not supposed to have a plot.
2. The songs aren’t very good/sound dated. Well, it’s Cats. I’m delighted they didn’t change the original songs too much, because then they would’ve lost the exact people who would want to see this: fans of the musical.
3. The cats look bizarre. Well, it’s Cats. They’re supposed to look bizarre. I’d argue the stage musical was even more bizarre.
I don’t think it was such a terrible endeavour for the studio. The musical was a massive massive success worldwide. It has a great number of fans. I’d imagine that every one of them would like to see it on film. Hooper’s Les Misérables delivered 440 million worldwide. Let’s wait and see, but I’d be surprised if Cats didn’t have great legs at the box office, even if its opening number will be small, especially next to Star Wars.
Its production budget is 95M that is in the same range as OUATIH and FvF were and for those the bar for success was 100M+ domestic, 400M-ish worldwide and while I think CATS will probably be able to do much better outside the US, I just don’t think it will be able to break even. Current projections put it at 12-17M this weekend in the US and that could work with the lucrative Holiday weekdays and all but I have a feeling it may not reach double digits and then it is probably in trouble. Granted The Greatest Showman started in double digits before turning into a sleeper phenomenon but I don’t think that’s gonna happen this time.
My guess is that its absolute best case scenario is 17M OW / 80M DOM / 280M WW, but if I’m being honest my actual guess is 8M OW / 50M DOM / 170M WW.
We’ll see, for the cast’s sake, I hope it will at least make money that should help the team behind it save face after the unanimous critical bashing.
Where is “all the press” about women being shut out this year? You seemed to have done much of the previous “press” yourself Sasha.
It’s here! It’s a masterpiece! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3de490625ad2dae8fd5bd11312d11c12ca4e205b155a4c8741c5d3a4a38932d4.jpg
“It’s a major player.”
For best film of the decade? You bet!
The two popes is a good movie. as is little woman ,The Irishman is the best film of the year Jojo Rabbit is a mediocre movie .
OT: Just watched Star Wars IX (yes, outside US you can often see new movies on Wednesdays, haha ). It is not good. That’s all I wanted to say.
I have had a hunch that either Dark Waters (important and timely subject matter, seems like a writer’s movie) or Motherless Brooklyn (the writers branch often finds themselves as the sole branch honoring passion projects like this. See: 20th Century Women). They often have a nominee that doesn’t repeat, so maybe Dark Waters will get bumped for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood or Joker. But I think it could surprise.
Also, while I love all those TV shows…I am SO rooting for Watchmen to take this. What an extraordinary achievement. I’m already looking forward to going back and experiencing the whole series a second time.
It gonna be a big worry if this year’s Oscars is gonna be marred by this ‘ what bout women ‘ protest vote we answered this let make it clear whether it woman or man starting or directing it had be purely on film merits NOT politics consensus best film of the year NOT activist fuelled envy and anger propelling a film that I believe is not in top5 or even 10 this year and frankly this is far bigger threat than a Netflix or streaming film winning best picture to the integrity of Oscar and it’s future pandering to political interest groups will only throw off the majority of traditional Oscar members and piss off off the public at large. To me Oscar rediscovered that most pivotal balance between consensus contender btw audiences and critics that is why in a refreshing twist I hope joker wins and wins big proves ray of hope Oscar future credibility they resist nagging temptation five in to radical activism and causes and resist critic choice in preferen e for first time in nearly a decade only third time since 2000 the public’s choice what great story it be if only it happen.
Last year showed that Academy voters don’t like outside organizations loudly telling them who to vote for. Something team incel….um…Joker ought to be thinking about.
Surely you don’t ACTUALLY believe Joker only appeals to incels? Or, heaven forbid, that it actually promotes such thinking?
Mostly me having fun twitting this Aaron character.
It’s a preferential ballot, no way on god’s green earth will this film avoid squeamish voters from putting it 7th or 8th. To win BP, you basically need all but a small handful of votes to be 1-3.
Yeah it’s never going to win BP.
Not exactly. You can have as many as 50%-1 voters name the film the worst of the nominees and still win best picture. And a part of the rest can be outside the top 3 as well (they just have to be the right votes)
So, this used to be an incredibly strong stat which was just broken last year with BlacKkKlansman being snubbed here and then going on to win the Oscar.
But the screenplay precursors were pretty bonkers last year anyway.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was probably eligible, as it was adapted from an article, exactly like Dark Waters, so that’s really quite bad for that film. Which is a shame.
Joker was probably eligible as well, so that most likely means it’s not winning Adapted Screenplay at the Oscar. It could still get nominated though.
The Irishman should probably take this in a cakewalk, if it hopes to win Best Picture.
I agree Scripter has traditionally been a good indicator of who will win in the adapted screenplay category. I see that also being the case this year.
Happy for Two Popes and JoJo here – both are strong adaptations for the screen. Both still are in my predictions list for Best Picture.