[Poll!] Predictions Friday — The Producers Guild and Screen Actors Announce

Tonight the Editors Guild announces this year’s winners. Saturday, the Producers Guild announce theirs, and Sunday, the SAG Awards are held. These are going to be three crucial days in the lead up to the Oscars. We don’t know anything yet, really, about how this race is going to go. Why? Because we don’t have any one film proving its widespread strength among thousands of voters — except Jojo Rabbit, which won the audience award in Toronto, where it didn’t have to compete with 1917 or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or Joker. But that’s been the largest consensus seal of approval so far.

The Golden Globe voters are around 90-100 people. But the Producers Guild membership is around 8,000 and SAG-AFTRA is around 120,000. The way these guild awards turn will be indicative of whether we have a year that is going to split between Best Picture and Best Director, or a year that won’t.

Keep in mind that La La Land won both the PGA and the DGA but wasn’t up for a SAG, so we don’t know what would have happened there. All we know is that some time between mid-January and the Oscars, La La Land became divisive.

And that’s the key to figuring out how the Producers Guild is going to vote. Divisive means polarizing. That means if a film is a case of “love it/hate it,” then it will have a hard time winning on a preferential balot — unless enough people love it that it wins a majority on the first round. Otherwise, the redistribution recount rounds kick in and films that are second and third and fourth on the ballot can be pushed to the top.

How do we know what films will be pushed to the top? It isn’t an exact science. We’ve all been caught off guard by a guild winner, as we were with The King’s Speech and with Birdman. These movies weren’t really expected to be so dominant, but they came in and they won everything all at once: PGA, DGA, SAG.

A movie like that inspires TRUE LOVE. Or you’re voting for something in addition to face value. With Birdman, the vote was very much an anti-superhero movie vote. Many voters apparently felt COMPELLED to choose it over Boyhood, even though even BAFTA went for Boyhood. The King’s Speech was a film people simply LOVED over The Social Network. Oddly enough, it seems to be harder to vote for a movie that is just kick-ass great. Just ask Mad Max: Fury Road. People won’t push for that kind of movie to win. There has to be a deeper emotional connection involved in some respect.

Some of the things I could see pushing voters this year would be an anti-Trump thing (which benefits Joker, I would imagine). I can see love for nostalgia being a factor with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, more or less because Tarantino represents the old-school way of making movies — real film, real theaters. He is also way way overdue. So if voters feel this is his year, they might push the film to the top. Add to that, the incredibly charming — like so charming you could die — two stars of the film, Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton and Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth. The charisma of those two guys alone could push this thing over the top.

But then there is 1917: a masterpiece, emotionally stirring, and a major technological feat. Moreover, it modernizes its storytelling to morph into a bit like how Millennials and Zoomers understand story from playing video games for so many years. While films and filmmakers are mostly devoted to traditional storytelling (for the most part), Mendes has made something that might translate a bit more to younger audiences, weirdly enough, to compete with superhero movies that also employ this type of storytelling but with a lot more visual effects.

Will 1917 be number one on ballots? Is it a number two or three film? Hard to say. Is it a first round winner? We just don’t know.

PGA Winners that have won Best Picture since expanded ballot:

2009 — The Hurt Locker
2010 — The King’s Speech
2011 — The Artist
2012 — Argo
2013 — 12 Years a Slave
2014 — Birdman
2015 — The Big Short
2016 — La La Land
2017 — The Shape of Water
2018 — Green Book

SAG ensemble winners that have won the Oscar for Best Picture in same era:

2009 — The Hurt Locker
2010 — The King’s Speech
2011 — The Artist
2012 — Argo
2013 — American Hustle
2014 — Birdman
2015 — Spotlight
2016 — Hidden Figures
2017 — Three Billboards
2018 — Black Panther

Either way, this is going to be two weeks of white-knuckle tension as we barrel towards the Oscars at breakneck speed. Hold onto your butts.

The thing about the PGA is that weird stuff can happen because it’s ten movies. And this year, every director is also a producer on their film except for Greta Gerwig — that’s nine out of 10 directors listed as producers.

Some of them are triple-hyphenate writer-director-producers:

Quentin Tarantino
Bong Joon-ho
Sam Mendes
Taika Waititi
Noah Baumbach
Todd Phillips
Rian Johnson

I would say that the top films most likely to prevail are still your DGA five, as no film (except for the infamous anomaly Driving Miss Daisy) has ever won the PGA without a DGA nomination. Sure, stats were made to be busted, but that is still a good place to start. That means your winner will be one of these:

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
1917
The Irishman
Parasite
Jojo Rabbit

I have a feeling it will be a huge surprise, whatever it is.

Our predictions:

Producers Guild:
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — Marshall Flores, Sasha Stone
Parasite — Ryan Adams, Marshall Flores, Clarence Moye

SAG:

Best Ensemble:
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — Sasha Stone (Alt: Irishman), Marshall Flores
Jojo Rabbit – Clarence Moye (Alt: OUATIH)
Parasite – Ryan Adams (Alt: OUATIH), Marshall Flores

Best Actor:
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker — Ryan Adams, Marshall Flores, Clarence Moye, Sasha Stone

Best Actress:
Renee Zellweger, Judy — Ryan Adams, Marshall Flores, Clarence Moye, Sasha Stone

Supporting Actor:
Bradley Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — Ryan Adams, Marshall Flores, Clarence Moye, Sasha Stone

Supporting Actress:
Laura Dern, Marriage Story — Marshall Flores,Clarence Moye, Sasha Stone
Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers — Ryan Adams

Which film do YOU think wins PGA?