This story will break in the trades tomorrow, but here’s the scoop.
In a rather shocking turn of events, the screenplay for Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana, a Golden Globe winner for Best Supporting Actor Monday night, was apparently classified by the Academy as an original screenplay in a meeting held in mid-December.
The Academy’s decision, which is obviously a month old at this juncture, was not revealed in any way as awards season accelerated through the last 30 days. Gaghan himself was not even made privy to the classification until today. Meanwhile, his work as writer of the screenplay has seen recognition from the Writers Guild of America in the adapted category, and was also a nominee for the USC Scripter Award which recognizes the writers of heralded adaptations each year in addition to the source material that spawned them. Syriana was even a finalist for the Scripter win along with Capote, a competition that came down to the latter taking the award earlier this afternoon.