There look to be a lot of previous Oscar nominees (and winners) for screenwriting back in play this year for high profile adaptations. Certainly more than in the original field, but that doesn't make it that much easier to predict from a year out.
Alexander Payne won this category for his last feature film
Sideways with his writing partner Jim Taylor. He's got two new collaborators in Nat Faxon and Jim Rash with whom he's adapted the Kaui Hart Hemmings novel
The Descendants, which fits with Payne's style of balancing smart humour and real emotion. I'm looking forward to it.
Another past Oscar winner in this category is Christopher Hampton, who received his Oscar back in 1989 for
Dangerous Liaisons which was based on his own play. For this year he's adapted another one of his own plays with the word ''dangerous'' in the title;
A Dangerous Method, which explores the work of and relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud.
And yet another pair of previous Adapted Screenplay winners with a project in the race this year are Steve Zaillian (
Schindler's List) and Aaron Sorkin (
The Social Network), who have teamed up to adapt
Moneyball, Michael Lewis' nonfiction account of Billy Beane's computerized drafting system of MLB prospects, for the screen. I'll be interested to see where they can go with it.
George Clooney and Grant Heslov were nominated five years ago for writing
Good Night and Good Luck, and are collaborating again to bring us their adaptation of Beau Willimon's play
The Ides of March. Political dramas are never an unwise bet, and this one has enough star power to make it a big awards magnet for Clooney and Heslov.
Back in the realm of more traditional Oscar bait is Steven Spielberg's
War Horse, based on Michael Morpurgo's novel which is also coming out as a Broadway play this year. Richard Curtis and Lee Hall have written the screenplay, which is sure to catch many an Academy member's fancy with its sentimental story and hefty WWI setting.
Predicted five:
A Dangerous Method
The Descendants
The Ides of March
Moneyball
War Horse
Also consider: Albert Nobbs,
A Better Life,
Coriolanus,
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,
The Iron Lady,
The Help,
The Skin That I Inhabit,
Water for Elephants,
We Bought a Zoo,
We Need to Talk About Kevin.
