Damn, Marvel. If you’re looking for some awards season love, here it is. Audiences don’t just love your movies, some guilds do too. The Writers Guild Of America (WGA) has announced their awards nominees, and yes, the usual suspects are there, or at least the ones most of us expected (or predicted for Oscars). In the original screenplay category, Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” landed a nomination, Wes Anderson’s screenplay (co-written with Hugo Guiness) for “The Grand Budapest Hotel” scored a nod, as did Dan Gilroy’s wickedly written “Nightcrawler." “Foxcatcher” and “Whiplash” round out that category. (“Birdman,” ineligible because of this or that politics, did not earn a nod).
But there was a big surprise in the Best Adapted screenplay category that not many saw coming: a nomination for James Gunn and Nicole Perlman’s script for “Guardians of The Galaxy” adapted from the comic book. This is certainly validation for Marvel who many believed flipped the script with their own formula and went for something a little bit more irreverent, goofy and fun (some of us disagree, I digress). Another nod we didn’t see coming was one for Jason Hall’s work on Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper.” That movie in particular has come out of nowhere in the last few days of guild nominations and looks like it’s going to be a surprise big Oscar contender despite some pretty weak reviews (including ours — let’s face it, this movie is mediocre).
On the more expected side of nominations for adapted screenplay, Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” screenplay earned a nom, as did Nick Hornby’s work on “Wild,” and Graham Moore’s script for “The Imitation Game.” As always, all guild nominations are generally a pretty good precursor of what’s to come when the Oscar nominations are announced, give or take a selection here and there.
The 2015 Writers Guild Awards will be held on Feb. 14th. Nominations below, and note: all the films in the documentary category are on our Best Documentaries Of 2014 list.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"Boyhood," Written by Richard Linklater
"Foxcatcher," Written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman
"The Grand Budapest Hotel," Written by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guiness
"Nightcrawler," Written by Dan Gilroy
"Whiplash," Written by Damien Chazelle
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"American Sniper," Screenplay by Jason Hall; Based on the book by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and James Defelice
"Gone Girl," Screenplay by Gillian Flynn; Based on her novel
"Guardians of the Galaxy," Written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman; Based on the Marvel comic by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
"The Imitation Game," Screenplay by Graham Moore; Based on the book "Alan Turing: The Enigma" by Andrew Hodges
"Wild," Screenplay by Nick Hornby; Based on the memoir "Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail" by Cheryl Strayed
DOCUMENTARY SCREENPLAY
"Finding Vivian Maier," Written by John Maloof & Charlie Siskel; Sundance Selects
"The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz," Written by Brian Knappenberger; FilmBuff
"Last Days in Vietnam," Written by Mark Bailey & Kevin McAlester; American Experience Films
"Red Army," Written by Gabe Polsky; Sony Pictures Classics