Top Oscar Screenplay Contenders Win At Writers Guild (AWARDS 2017)

Jeff Huston

2018wga

In the last major guild ceremony before the Academy Awards on March 4, winners went according to the awards season script as the Writers Guild of America announced their choices for the best screenplays of 2017.

Jordan Peele won Original Screenplay for his debut film Get Out, while legendary Brit filmmaker James Ivory won the Adapted honor for Call Me by Your Name.

Peele and Ivory have dominated these categories in previous critics and awards shows; this completes their likely coronations on Oscar night.

Peele’s biggest competition for the Academy Award will be Greta Gerwig‘s Lady Bird and Martin McDonagh‘s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. McDonagh’s screenplay wasn’t nominated by the WGA due to arcane guild rules that made it ineligible, but even as an Oscar nominee it’ll be difficult to beat Peele for what seems the most likely way for the Academy to honor Get Out.

Conversely, it’s difficult to see anything upsetting Call Me by Your Name. Not only is the adapted category the best way for the Academy to honor this Best Picture nominee, but it’ll also be a perfect career capper for the 89-year-old Ivory who’s greatly respected for his collaborations with producer Ismail Merchant (Howard’s End, The Remains of the Day, and much more).

With Three Billboards dominating the Screen Actors Guild and The Shape of Water winning at both the Producers and Directors Guilds, the WGA wins appear to keep the Best Picture race completely wide open. I don’t think it is.

At all.

I’m still betting on Three Billboards (just as I have been since the nominations were first announced) because of how much the Acting branch loves it; the actor membership of the Academy outnumbers all other branches by a long shot.  We shall see.

Here are the WGA winners and fellow nominees. Trophies were handed out on Sunday February 11, 2018 at a gala ceremony in Beverly Hills, CA, hosted by Patton Oswalt.

2017 WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA WINNERS

Original Screenplay
WINNER: Get Out, by Jordan Peele

Adapted Screenplay
WINNER: Call Me by Your Name, by James Ivory; based on the novel by André Aciman

  • The Disaster Artist, by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber; based on the book “The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside the Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made” by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell
  • Logan, by Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green; based on characters from the X-Men Comic Books and Theatrical Motion Pictures
  • Molly’s Game, by Aaron Sorkin; based on the book by Molly Bloom
  • Mudbound, by Virgil Williams and Dee Rees; based on the novel by Hillary Jordan

Documentary Screenplay
WINNER: Jane, by Brett Morgen

  • Betting on Zero, by Theodore Braun
  • No Stone Unturned, by Alex Gibney
  • Oklahoma City, by Barak Goodman

To see winners in the television categories, click here.

Click on links below for other Critics Group Awards and Guild Nominees that have been announced so far for the 2017 / 18 season:

90th Annual Academy Award nominees
Directors Guild of America winners
Screen Actors Guild winners
Producers Guild of America winners
Critics Choice Awards winners
Golden Globe Winners
National Society of Film Critics
Oklahoma Film Critics Circle
Chicago Film Critics Association
Atlanta Film Critics Circle
San Diego Film Critics Society
Philadelphia Film Critics Circle
Toronto Film Critics Association
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
Boston Society of Film Critics
Washington D.C. Film Critics Association
AFI Top 10 of 2017
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
New York Film Critics Circle
The National Board of Review

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