A sudden Oscar front-runner and a dark-horse contender took high honors on the Writers Guild Awards on Sunday night time, because the heartwarmer “CODA” and the satirical “Don’t Look Up” prevailed within the tailored and authentic screenplay classes, respectively.
“That is actual, professional pleasure,” the writer-director of “Don’t Look Up,” Adam McKay, stated in a pretaped speech. Although a number of awards exhibits have returned to in-person gatherings, the WGA ceremony was digital, and nominees had been requested to ship of their acceptance speeches forward of time. Solely the winner’s was performed through the ceremony.
A number of main movies had been ineligible for the WGAs this yr as a result of they weren’t written below a bargaining settlement with the WGA or its sister guilds. So “Belfast” and “The Worst Particular person within the World” (within the original-screenplay class) and “The Energy of the Canine” and “The Misplaced Daughter” (within the tailored class) weren’t within the working. And since that considerably whittled down the pool of huge contenders, most pundits anticipated the writer-director Sian Heder’s “CODA,” based mostly on the 2014 French movie “La Famille Bélier,” would prevail with the Writers Guild, although “Don’t Look Up” nonetheless confronted stiff competitors from Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza.”
Can the WGA victors additionally win their Oscar races now that “Belfast” has misplaced its awards mojo and the surging “CODA” beat “The Energy of the Canine” at this weekend’s influential Producers Guild Awards? In a current screenplay contest on the BAFTAs, “CODA” pulled out one other shock win over “The Energy of the Canine,” its largest best-picture rival. Because the path to the highest Oscar virtually at all times winds by way of the screenplay classes, an adapted-screenplay win for “CODA” on Oscar night time might foreshadow the movie’s final destiny.
And although “Don’t Look Up” has a harder path to the best-picture Oscar, with no notable awards-season wins till now, the WGA victory at the least means that the original-screenplay race will stay one to observe.
Listed below are a number of the different WGA winners:
Documentary: “Exposing Muybridge”
Drama sequence: “Succession”
Comedy sequence: “Hacks”
New sequence: “Hacks”
Authentic long-form sequence: “Mare of Easttown”
Tailored long-form sequence: “Maid”