WGA nominations go independent
For the second year in a row, character-driven independent films dominated the Writers Guild of America award nominations announced Thursday morning.
Commercial aspirations aside, there’s not a blockbuster among the bunch. “The Aviator,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Garden State,” “Hotel Rwanda” and “Kinsey” are the original screenplay nominees, and “Before Sunset,” “Mean Girls,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “The Motorcycle Diaries” and “Sideways” are the nominees for adapted screenplay. The highest-grossing film among them, at least at this point, is “Mean Girls,” with $86 million.
Only two major studios, Paramount and Warner Bros., were represented in the nominations for the 57th annual awards, although the other nominations went to films distributed by specialized divisions of major studios. Fox Searchlight Pictures, a division of Fox Filmed Entertainment, received three nominations; Focus Features (whose parent is Universal) scored two. Miramax (Disney), Warner Independent Pictures (Warner Brothers) and United Artists (MGM) each garnered one nomination.
Several of the writers had previously been nominated for or won the WGA awards, but several newcomers figured in the mix, including Zach Braff, 29, the star of NBC’s “Scrubs,” for his first feature film, the comedy-drama “Garden State.”
“Kinsey” marks the third WGA nomination for Bill Condon, who was previously nominated for adapted screenplay for “Gods and Monsters” and “Chicago.”
“It’s completely special,” Condon said. “It’s the second time I have been mentioned in the same breath with Charlie Kaufman. I revere him. So many of my friends are writers, and there are so many talented people I know, and a lot of them don’t get the encouragement I get.”
“There is a brotherhood among writers, and the competitiveness is so minor,” echoed “The Aviator” nominee John Logan, who previously won the WGA award for the HBO movie “RKO 281.” Logan said he spent a year researching Howard Hughes and “internalizing all of that” before he began to write. “It’s very challenging when there is that much fact and material,” he said.
“There is absolutely nothing better than being recognized by your fellow writers,” added “Million Dollar Baby” scenarist Paul Haggis.
“It was a long, tough process making what was a wonderful short story [into a script]. It took me seven or eight months to figure out. I just wanted to create a nest for his wonderful little story to sit in, a jewel of a story. I wanted to protect it.”
Julie Delpy had been writing for nearly 20 years and was even dropped by her acting agent because he felt she was wasting her time writing; “Before Sunset” was the first time one of her scripts has been produced.
Working with co-writers Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke on the sequel to “Before Sunrise,” she said, “was not like three strangers writing together. When we would get into a room and start writing, we cut out all the politeness and got straight to the point. With the three of us in a room, we had no ego.”
The WGA award nominations are not the Oscar barometer that the Directors Guild of America awards have been over the last five decades. Last year, WGA winner “Lost in Translation” received the Academy Award, but the guild’s other pick, “American Splendor,” lost the Oscar to “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” Oscars have gone to scribes who weren’t even nominated for a WGA: Two years ago, Ronald Harwood was absent among the WGA contenders but won the Oscar for “The Pianist.”
The Writers Guild Awards will take place Feb. 19 in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Palladium and simultaneously in New York at the Pierre Hotel.
A complete list of nominees:
Original screenplay
John Logan -- “The Aviator,” Miramax Films
Charlie Kaufman -- “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” story by Kaufman & Michel Gondry & Pierre Bismuth, Focus Features
Zach Braff -- “Garden State,” Fox Searchlight Pictures
Keir Pearson & Terry George -- “Hotel Rwanda,” United Artists
Bill Condon -- “Kinsey,” Fox Searchlight Pictures
Adapted screenplay
Richard Linklater & Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke -- “Before Sunset,” story by Linklater & Kim Krizan, based on characters created by Linklater & Krizan, Warner Independent Pictures
Tina Fey -- “Mean Girls,” based on the book “Queen Bees and Wannabes” by Rosalind Wiseman, Paramount Pictures
Paul Haggis -- “Million Dollar Baby,” based upon stories from “Rope Burns” by F.X. Toole, Warner Bros.
Jose Rivera -- “The Motorcycle Diaries,” based on the books “Notas de Viaje” by Ernesto Guevara and “Con el Che por America Latina” by Alberto Granado, Focus Features
Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor -- “Sideways,” based on the novel by Rex Pickett, Fox Searchlight Pictures
