Oddly, the Academy still included McCraney in the Oscar nomination as well, but if you're willing to give McCraney story credit on this project (for writing a play that never got produced), doesn't that mean you're treating it like an original screenplay? I don't think too many people are going to complain about McCraney standing alongside Jenkins with an Oscar in hand two weeks from now, but I'm curious to hear where others stand on this question.
This still feels like a trickier call than meets the eye. Only one Academy nominee (the aforementioned Hail, Caesar) is a straight period design job, with Fantastic Beasts representing a fantasy-period hybrid. The rest are all fantasy and contemporary. That's unusual for a branch that's often more than half populated with period sets. La La Land still looks like the frontrunner based on all it's already won, but it would be a very atypical Oscar winner.
