In Contention

Tag: Best Adapted Screenplay

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

    This year’s race for Best Adapted Screenplay has seemingly been the most predictable of the year. One script has dominated the precursor circuit and the name behind that script is as worthy as ever given his contributions to the medium over the years.

    I’m not particularly a fan of this slate. One script is an interesting experiment that doesn’t fully land as a piece of screenwriting, another is a near word-for-word adaptation of a novel (which is fine, but credit where it’s due) and another, frankly, made for the most overrated film of the year. But the two that seem to be duking it out for the win are worthy and deserve to be here, in my opinion, so I have little room to complain.

    The nominees are:

    “127 Hours” (Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy)
    “The Social Network” (Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin)
    “Toy Story 3” (Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich)
    “True Grit” (Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen)
    “Winter’s Bone” (Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini)

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  • Could there be another ‘Network’ dagger lurking?

    I’m really not trying to drop another grenade on the season here, but I was wondering recently about surprises this year and whether there are more in store.  And one undeniable shock would be an upset in the Best Adapted Screenplay race.

    Some would point to “True Grit” or “Winter’s Bone” as the likely runner-ups to Aaron Sorkin’s all-but-assured win, but if members are voting with their heart in the Best Picture field, why not in the screenplay races, too?  In “Toy Story 3,” I think you’ve got the makings of a real spoiler.  It’s a wonderful close to a beloved series and, look at that, it has “story” right there in the title, waiting to be capitalized upon in advertising.  (That one’s free, Disney flacks.)

    In all likelihood, the Academy will feel comfortable sticking with the Best Animated Feature (and potentially Best Original Song) fields as a way to recognize this film and franchise, but if they wanted to spring for more, this would be the place.  And Michael Arndt, an Oscar already in tow, isn’t some unknown newbie making his way through the season.  When it comes to screenplays, the Academy at large simply thinks about dialogue before all else.  That’s the extent of sweeping understanding of the form.  And Sorkin has that in spades, so the smart money, no question, is on “The Social Network.” I’m just saying the smart money was also on David Fincher once upon a time.

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  • ‘Ghost Writer’ surprises as one of five USC Scripter finalists

    The USC Libraries Scripter Award is an annual honor (now in its 23rd year) in recognition of “the best adaptation of the printed word into film.” It is one of the more unique awards along the circuit as it is not only awarded to the screenwriter but the source material’s author, as well.

    Past winners have included “Schindler’s List,” “The Shawshank Redemption” and “No Country for Old Men,” obvious picks in their respective years. But the nature of the award has also generally allowed for some outside-the-box thinking, witnessed in nominations for “Get Shorty,” “The Bourne Supremacy” and “Iron Man,” among others over the years.

    A few years ago the rules for eligibility were extended to include screenplays based on pieces of journalism, comic books and even other screenplays. This is why, it should be noted, that “Toy Story 3” is not eligible for the honor this year: It is a screenplay based on separately created characters rather than the written word.  Also not eligible are foreign language films.

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  • FIRST HALF FYC: Best Screenplay (Original and Adapted)

    For the third episode in our new Oscar-season feature, we take a recess from the acting races and look instead to the screenplays that roped the actors in to begin with. If you’re new to the feature (or even if you aren’t), the game is simple: railing against awards voters’ usual bias towards late-year releases, we’re highlighting a ballot’s worth of notable contenders in each major category, from films released in the first half of the year.

    I’ve been doing the categories on a one-by-one basis, but today I’m doubling down and covering both the Original and Adapted Screenplay races. This is partly in order to squeeze in everything I want to cover before Oscar nomination morning, but also partly because one of the categories proved less than rewarding on its own: starting with the adaptations and finding the pickings so slim, I decided that a beefier post was to be created from twinning the categories.

    That’s not to dismiss the films and screenplays I’ve selected, even the least of which offer substantial points of interest — and for which I still have more affection than some of the bigger names being  tossed into the Oscar ring. Indeed, the films in this list that don’t entirely click for me are no less (and often more) intriguing than those that do.

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  • But is it?

    I’m not sure how I missed the memo, but in the past 48 hours, “The Town” apparently became an Oscar contender and nobody told me.

    You may recall that when I posted my updated predictions on Sunday, I actually found room for Ben Affleck’s popular sophomore feature in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. I thought that a relatively off-center guess at the time, but now others, emboldened by strong reviews and excellent box office for the straight-ahead thriller, are going much further.

    Just yesterday, both Deadline’s Pete Hammond and THR’s Gregg Kilday bestowed the “O” word upon “The Town,” with both reporters citing a wildly enthusiastic reception at the film’s Academy screening on Saturday. (I always take such screening reports with a pinch of salt — a film can play well without inspiring reverence — but I’m just passing along the message.) Kilday goes on to suggest that Affleck could benefit from the Academy’s noted fondness for heartthrob actors turned serious filmmakers.

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  • FIPRESCI names ‘Ghost Writer’ Film of the Year

    This news actually dropped a few weeks ago, but I neglected to mention it while I was distracted with Venice goings-on. Anyway, since the award was presented at the San Sebastián Film Festival this past weekend, it seems appropriate to bring it up now.

    FIPRESCI, the international critics’ association, is best known for the independent awards they dish out at most major film festivals — which, obviously, tend to line up more with critical consensus than jury decisions. (At Venice last week, for example, they chose the widely admired Russian entry “Silent Souls.”)

    However, once a year, they poll their collected membership to elect a Grand Prix winner for Film of the Year. A list of past winners of the prize, awarded since 1999, reads rather like a greatest-hits compilation of recent arthouse cinema: “There Will Be Blood,” “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” “All About My Mother,” and so on.

    So, what’s their Film of the Year for 2010? Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer.”

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  • Could Sorkin’s ‘Social Network’ be considered original?

    I’ve been hearing for a while now that Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay for “The Social Network,” credited in the film as an adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s “The Accidental Billionaires” (covered by Guy in Page to Screen here), could conceivably be considered an original work by the Academy.

    The first clue was the fact that Sorkin and Mezrich were writing their material separately.  My understanding was Mezrich would send Sorkin pages and they would compare ideas and notes, but Sorkin was not working from a published work and was not “adapting” it into a screenplay.  It kind of recalls the manner in which Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke worked on “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

    I’ve got a few calls out to some folks to firm this up, but I’m thinking more and more that the case may be perfectly made for an original screenplay classification.  Meanwhile there’s a big, fat (as always, amazing) Mark Harris piece in New York Magazine that deals in some detail with all of this.  But, well, it’s still just a little unclear.

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  • Oscar’s bookshelf

    SpringPad blog has a nifty graphic illustrating 20 Best Picture-winning films that were adapted from literary works (not other films or plays, if I get the gist).  Trivia nuggets throughout.  Click on the image below for a larger version.

    Oscar bookshelf

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

    Peter Capaldi in In the LoopIn most cases, the adapted screenplay category of a given Oscar race is packed with Best Picture nominees or contenders. This year, however, there was a nice balance of adapted and original screenplays in the Best Picture category, and in fact, of the “top five” films that trickled down throughout the season, three were original and two were adapted, a rarity.

    Regarding the adaptations, things seemed to firm up for a while, but with the various WGA ineligibilities, one couldn’t shake the feeling that a surprise was in the works. At the end of the day, Scott Cooper’s run on “Crazy Heart” came to an unfortunate end, while a fan-fave British comedy found support.

    The nominees are:

    “District 9” (Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell)
    “An Education” (Nick Hornby)
    “In the Loop” (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche)
    “Precious” (Geoffrey Fletcher)
    “Up in the Air” (Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner)

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  • INTERVIEW: Armando Iannucci

    Armando IannucciHe may currently be basking in the glow of a surprise Oscar nomination, but when I call him up at his London home, “In the Loop” writer-director Armando Iannucci is boasting about another achievement entirely.

    “Our family dog just gave birth to three puppies this afternoon,” he audibly beams, our opening pleasantries barely cooled. “They’re cavoodles, a poodle-spaniel hybrid. You know the Hairy Maclary books?” As a matter of fact, I do, though he’s too excited to wait for a response. “They look just like Hairy Maclary. They’re lovely.”

    As I extend my congratulations to the proud mother – on top of those to Iannucci himself – it occurs to me that the topic of hybrid puppies is as appropriate a place as any to start a conversation with this nimble giant of British TV comedy, a man whose writing trades in everyday absurdities and non-sequiturs, whether in the dead-end Norwich media scene (“I’m Alan Partridge”) or the considerably more high-powered world of Downing Street politics (“The Thick of It”).

    It is, of course, the latter – a scabrous satire of the alternately petty and ruthless antics of British government spin doctors – that provides the jumping-off point for Iannucci’s first feature film, “In the Loop.” Linked to the TV series by the presence of Peter Capaldi’s perma-scowling, cyanide-tongued political advisor Malcolm Tucker, the film broadens the canvas by taking on Washington as well as Westminster.

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  • TECH SUPPORT: Post mortem

    Michael Gambon in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceSo here we are. For the most part, the crafts category nominations weren’t surprising, and there is not a single film that fared drastically better – or worse – than I expected.

    As for comments on individual categories? In Best Cinematography, Bruno Delbonnel’s nomination for “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” has got to be one of the biggest surprises of the year. The other nominees were completely expected. Dion Beebe apparently couldn’t overcome “Nine”’s collapse.

    On the other hand, John Myrhe managed to make it in for Rob Marshall’s musical in Best Art Direction after missing with both BAFTA and the guild. Nominations for “Avatar” and, in my opinion, “Sherlock Holmes” were to be expected. But the other nominees were slightly surprising.

    “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” was richly deserving but still surprising. And “The Young Victoria” evidently had more support than I first thought. The real snub here, however, is David Wasco. If he can’t get in for “Inglourious Basterds,” I’m not sure what it’ll take.

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  • ‘Bright Star’ screenplay goes adapted

    (from left) Abbie Cornish and Ben Wishaw in Bright StarSteve Pond sure is getting a nice bunch of scoops today.  Mainly because, I imagine, he’s doing the dilligence of looking over the ballots and accompanying eligibility forms, which so often tend to reveal last minute category shockers, something I’ve been meaning to do for a few days now.

    Anyway, you might remember a few years ago when Stephen Gaghan’s “Syriana” was lighting up the adapted screenplay circuit.  In December of 2005, the Academy convened and determined that the script was original since it strayed so far away from Robert Baer’s non-fiction “See No Evil,” and since it had no real obligation to let its finding be known to the campaign or the participants until the reminder sheets went out, it was over a month before the news broke.

    A similar situation has met Jane Campion and her screenplay for “Bright Star.” Pond reports that the screenplay has been ruled adapted, not original, virtually dashing any sliver of hope that the film would pop up in a writing category.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Lovely Bones’ bows, ‘New Moon’ reigns

    Mark Wahlberg in The Lovely Bones• “The Lovely Bones” finally landed this week, to decidedly mixed reviews.

    • Kris and Anne offered their thoughts on the film (among others) in this week’s Oscar Talk.

    • In Off the Carpet, we combed through the Best Adapted Screenplay contenders (which now include “District 9”).

    • “New Moon” surprised nobody with a record-breaking box-office haul last weekend, and its dominance is set to continue.

    • This week’s Long Shot column surveyed the growing buzz around populist contenders in this year’s Oscar race.

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  • ‘District 9’ an adapted screenplay after all

    When I surveyed the rather weak field of original screenplay contenders two weeks ago, one of the contenders I mentioned was Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell’s “District 9,” my assumption being that the vast departures from the original short film “Alive in Joburg” would be enough to warrant such a classification.

    I guess I was wrong.

    Screeners of the film have hit the doorsteps of awards voters this week and one of the categories listed is — yep, Best Adapted Screenplay.  Which means not only is the original field even thinner, but the adapted field just got a little tighter.  Some have scoffed at the idea of “Star Trek” being a player here, but what about “District 9,” one of the biggest surprise hits of the year?

  • OFF THE CARPET: Field of adaptations

    Amy Adams in Julie & JuliaAs always, the year’s adapted screenplay race is much more competitive than the original screenplay race. But what’s intriguing to note is that of the anticipated “big four” still to be widely screened, three of them are right in the thick of this discussion.

    In the case of “Nine,” there is a chance for Anthony Minghella to receive his second posthumous Oscar nomination in as many years, something I don’t think we’ve seen since James Dean. But sometimes the razzle-dazzle of a movie musical can overshadow what craft there might be on the page, so it’s no slam dunk. Michael Tolkin is co-writer on the script, and even though I’ve seen the film, I’m prohibited from offering my thoughts on the work.

    “The Lovely Bones,” meanwhile, is adapted from a beloved novel, looks to feature a more reserved and refined Peter Jackson than we’ve seen in recent years and could see the lovable trio (Jackson, Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh) back in Oscar’s good graces. We’ll know when we see it.

    The Royals and invited British press get their look on the 24th. Harry Knowles has received his typical peek (as Paramount continues to nurture the relationship as if it’s 2002 and AICN still moves the needle). The rest of the US press corps has to wait until the other side of the holiday on the 27th to judge. Hopefully we’ll still care by then. I heard some scathing criticisms out of an exhibitor screening last week.

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘The Informant!’ writer Scott Z. Burns

    Scott Z. BurnsFor Scott Z. Burns, the best way to tell the story of a compulsive liar was to take some liberties with the truth himself.

    “I’ve always been fascinated by lies … we all are,” the cheerfully forthright screenwriter tells me of his attraction to the story behind “The Informant!,” Steven Soderbergh’s playfully comic biopic of corporate whistleblower Mark Whitacre, who helped the FBI bust price fixing in America’s agribusiness sector, but wound up in federal prison for his own extreme indiscretions.

    “That’s kind of what watching movies is about – we’re delighted to be lied to for two or three hours. So Mark’s story was such obvious movie material.”

    We are sitting at a corner table in the bustling bar of London’s Soho Hotel, the afternoon ahead of the film’s UK premiere at the London Film Festival. Following a month of promoting the film in Venice, Toronto and the U.S., Burns is a touch dazed, unaccustomed to this level of individual attention: “The Informant!” represents his first solo feature credit, following producing and co-writing efforts on “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The Bourne Ultimatum” respectively, and a 2006 writing-directing debut with the HBO TV movie “Pu-239.”

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  • Nick Hornby on writing ‘An Education’

    Nick HornbyAmid the swirl of hype for “An Education” that’s been building for eight months now, there’s been surprisingly little mention of the man who is easily the biggest name involved with the film: superstar novelist Nick Hornby, whose free adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir looks certain to land him in the Best Adapted Screenplay pack.

    The film is only Hornby’s second successful stab at writing for film, 12 years after he adapted his own novel “Fever Pitch” for the screen. However, as he states in this Wall Street Journal interview, the gap between screen credits wasn’t for lack of trying:

    While several of his novels have been successfully adapted into movies, including “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy,” the 52-year-old Mr. Hornby has seen most of his screenplays fizzle in development, including a collaboration with actress Emma Thompson that “we just couldn’t get right.”

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  • POLL: Who deserves it? — BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

    Moving right along…tell us what you think in the sidebar poll.