Green Book wins the PGA. Is Oscar next?

by Nathaniel R

Peter Farrelly accepting the Outstanding Producer for Theatrical Motion Pictures award for "Green Book"

The weekend before the Oscar nominations, Green Book gets another feather in its divisive cap. It took the top PGA prize last night. It was nominated against Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Rich Asians, The Favourite, A Quiet Place, Roma, A Star is Born, and Vice... most but not all of which will transfer to Oscar Best Picture nominations if past statistics hold. In the nine years of the modern Best Picture era (by which we mean 2009 and onward when the field expanded) only three movies have won the PGA that did not repeat at the Oscars: Gravity (2013), The Big Short  (2015), and La La Land  (2016). But it's really only two since Gravity tied at the PGA with 12 Years a Slave (the latter of which did not have to share the Oscar for Best Picture). This year's race will give us an even ten years of statistics in this new era. So by the end of the season, future PGA winners will feel like they have either a 70% or an 80% of winning the Oscar. Either way it's something to worry about if you don't like Green Book, and something to cheer for, if you do...

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It's time for final Best Picture predictions!

For the next week we'll be sharing final predictions for each Oscar category. We're starting with the big kahuna, Best Picture because it's the most crucial. It's a domino effect essentially since each year shows us that once voters favor your movie, they just favor it whether or not it's particularly worthy from one category to the next. We'll start with the not so obvious (if you ask me) question:

What would be nominated in a five film year?

Past statistics will tell you that that would be the DGA lineup (BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Roma, A Star is Born, and Vice) because prior to 2010 when the Best Picture category expanded, the DGA lineup was slightly more predictive of Best Picture than of Best Director, as curious as that might seen. But it wasn't infallible, of course. And we don't think those would be the five this year. 

So let's take them in the order of strength after the jump...

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BAFTA's Oscar Predictions... er, Nominations. BAFTA's Nominations!

by Nathaniel R

The BAFTA nominations are in and, what do you know? There is no difference whatsoever in which 8 or 9 films each awards group watches each year! One longs for a utopia where each major organization longs to shout their own identity out to the world (in some ways we are what we love) rather than just predict the Oscars but in our current dystopia, people in the industry -- no matter which country they live in! -- only watch 9 movies a year before voting. 

Here are the nominees with commentary...

Best film

• BlackkKlansman
• The Favourite
• Green Book
• Roma
• A Star Is Born

In the bygone years of five nominations only for Best Picture at the Oscars the race looks like it would be down to 7 films now, these 5 above as well as Black Panther and (ugh) Vice. In fact, having 7 nominees only at Oscar this year wouldn't surprise us at all given how dominant those 7 films appear to be. It makes sense that Panther and Vice would be the two to fall out with BAFTA since they're surely more resonant in America...

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Producers Guild Nominations

by Nathaniel R

The PGA have announced their nominations for 2018. True to form they've leaned into big hits and crowd pleasers rather than pure critical acclaim. It's important to note straightaway that in the modern era of the expanded Best Picture list the PGA list has never exactly matched the Oscar list though it has ONCE included all the nominees (plus an additional film since PGA has 10 where Oscar is on a 5-10 system that's so far only delivered 8 or 9 nominees each year). Last year the two lists were markedly different, though, with 4 of the 10 titles dropping off when the Oscar list was announced, and two different titles popping up in their place.

After the jump all of the PGA nominees this year (in multiple film and television categories) and to show you how important box office success is to the PGA, the number in parenthesis is where that film ranks (currently) on the list of 2018 box office grosses. We'll also discuss what this all means in terms of what could happen with Oscar...

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Eligible for Oscar

347 titles are eligible for Best Picture this year. More films than that are released each year theatrically but not every title bothers with paperwork or with playing one week in Los Angeles (to become eligibile)  The annual list always contains a few curiousities...

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