Surprise winners at the WGA Awards tonight
Whoa! Eleventh hour plot twist! The Writers Guild veered away from the supposed Oscar frontrunners in Green Book and BlacKkKlansman to go instead with Bo Burnham’s film Eighth Grade (not even an Oscar nominee) for original screenplay and Can You Ever Forgive Me? in adapted. This is a huge deal, because it’s extremely rare for a non-Oscar nominee to win the WGA at all, and I’m not sure what that means for BlacKkKlansman’s chances on Oscar night, since all it has going in now is the BAFTA award. In fact, as far as precursors go, the writing awards are all over the place: Green Book won the Golden Globe, If Beale Street Could Talk won the Critics Choice, Leave No Trace (not Oscar-nominated) won the Scripter prize, BlacKkKlansman and The Favourite (not eligible for WGA) won at BAFTA, and now this result. We’re shooting in the dark on Oscar night for both screenplay awards.
WGA Winners
Adapted Screenplay: Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Original Screenplay: Eighth Grade
MPSE Golden Reel Winners
A Quiet Place was unsurprisingly lauded for its sound
In other news, the guild awards for sound editing came in tonight, and Bohemian Rhapsody and A Quiet Place took the top two, with Spider-Man winning a couple as well. I’d probably stick with Bohemian for both sound Oscars, just to be safe.
Effects/Foley: A Quiet Place
Dialogue/ADR: Bohemian Rhapsody
Musical: Bohemian Rhapsody
Music Score: Spider-Man: into the Spider-Verse
Foreign Language Feature: Roma
Feature Animation: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
