by Nathaniel R
The Producer's Guild, by "virtue" of the fact that they have more nominees than Oscar each year, often get fairly close to "predicting" the Best Picture list. This year they've chosen 11 titles. Recency bias surely helped give Molly's Game a winning hand and the PGA's love of the blockbuster delivered for Wonder Woman which is a good call here since it did help define the year and superhero movies are very much producer events. Last year Deadpool was nominated at the PGA and was the only film to drop off on Oscar nominaiton morning. The other 9 pictures selected are all then looking strong as Best Picture possibilities for the Oscar nominations on January 23rd. Nominations and more commentary after the jump...
FEATURE
- The Big Sick Producers: Judd Apatow, Barry Mendel
- Call Me By Your Name Producers: Peter Spears, Luca Guadagnino, Emilie Georges, Marco Morabito
- Dunkirk Producers: Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan
- Get Out Producers: Sean McKittrick & Edward H. Hamm, Jr., Jason Blum, Jordan Peele
- I, Tonya Producers: Bryan Unkeless, Steven Rogers, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley
- Lady Bird Producers: Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, Evelyn O’Neill
- Molly’s Game Producers: Mark Gordon, Amy Pascal, Matt Jackson
- The Post Producers: Amy Pascal, Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger
- The Shape Of Water Producers: Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Producers: Graham Broadbent & Pete Czernin, Martin McDonagh
- Wonder Woman Producers: Charles Roven & Richard Suckle, Zack Snyder & Deborah Snyder
So how much of this list will transfer to Oscar? If you exclude the two mild "surprises" (Molly's Game and Wonder Woman) that's 9 pictures which is, generally speaking, the max we get as Oscar nominees for Best Picture. That said the PGA generally misses a title that Oscar loves more. Here are the differences in recent years.
Differences in PGA to Oscar in modern supersized Best Picture years
2017: TBA
2016: (PGA only) Deadpool / (Oscar only) none -- all other nominations matched.
2015: (PGA only) Ex Machina, Sicario, Straight Outta Compton / (Oscar only) Room
2014: (PGA only) Foxcatcher, Gone Girl, Nightcrawler / (Oscar only) Selma
2013: (PGA only) Blue Jasmine, Saving Mr Banks / (Oscar only) Philomena
2012: (PGA only) Moonrise Kingdom, Skyfall / (Oscar only) Amour
2011: (PGA only) Bridesmaids, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Ides of March / (Oscar only) The Tree of Life, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
2010: (PGA only) The Town / (Oscar only) Winter's Bone
2009: (PGA only) Invictus, Star Trek / (Oscar only) The Blind Side, A Serious Man
What can we glean from this? It's really tough to say actually. The only easily visible difference is that the PGA are slighly more apt to love you if you are a big hit -- notice the PGA only nods for blockbusters like Straight Outta Compton, Skyfall, The Town and Gone Girl. Elsewhere though it doesn't always make any kind of "narrative" sense... though this probably isn't good news for big hits like Baby Driver (which would have made a perfectly understandable PGA honor).
Arguably the highest profile Best Picture hopefuls that the PGA excluded this year are Darkest Hour, The Florida Project, Mudbound, and Phantom Thread... if any of those do prevail on Oscar nomination morning, I'm assuming it will be The Florida Project. How about you?
ANIMATED FEATURE
- The Boss Baby Producer: Ramsey Naito
- Coco Producer: Darla K. Anderson
- Despicable Me 3 Producers: Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy
- Ferdinand Producers: Lori Forte, Bruce Anderson
- The Lego Batman Movie Producers: Dan Lin, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
The Producers Guild always sticks with comic-adventure American CG 3D toons so this list is not a surprise. The real question is will Oscar continue their embrace of diversity of aesthetic in their parallel category or will their new rules make their lists just a "which computer generated American comedy cartoons will make it?" game each year.