One Category at a Time: Original Screenplay

With only a handful of weeks before the Oscars, now is the time for me to start formulating some predictions, and I'll start with what may be the surest lock of the year, Best Original Screenplay.

It's hard to imagine the prize going to anything but the former Best Picture frontrunner Spotlight. Though it's no longer favoured to win the top award after The Big Short's momentum shifting PGA win, Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer's dense journalistic procedural will surely be given its due here.

The nearest challenger -- a distant second despite being a perfectly respectable option -- is probably Matt Charman and the Coens' austere political quasi-thriller Bridge of Spies, being the only other Best Picture nominee in the field.

PGA Preview + My Award Nominations: Original Screenplay

Tonight all eyes will be on the Producers Guild of America, who have matched the Academy all six years of the expanded Best Picture era so far. Pundit logic suggests that Spotlight (my prediction) is the only movie that can survive the rigors of the preferential ballot, although I wouldn't put it past them to be sufficiently impressed by the gargantuan production that was The Revenant. Spotlight is a relatively small and very talkative movie after all; Not the type that usually wins Best Picture, but I'll try to remain optimistic.

While the producers' decision may ultimately end the perceived race for the Academy's highest honour, the race for my own awards is just getting started. Each weekend from now until the Oscars I'll be publishing my own list of personal preferences, starting with Best Original Screenplay.

Early Oscar Predictions: Original Screenplay

Guess what, guys: It's officially the first day if Spring (though try telling that to the weather), and what better way to kick off the season of new life than by Springing forward into the new Oscar season with some early predictions!

Each Friday until the end of April, I'll be adding new categories to the sidebar with accompanying articles. In the spirit of the filmmaking process, the category order will be based on the order of steps of making a movie. "Loosely" based, at least. There's nothing about these early guesses that isn't completely loosey goosey anyway. But one thing we can assume with some degree of certainty is that most films start with a screenplay, so too will that be our starting point.

First off, even though some pundits have already read many of 2015's buzz-
worthy scripts, landing a nomination depends much more on how well the film is received overall than on the calibre of the writing. It makes spitballing these categories as much of a crapshoot as Best Picture, but there are some distant Best Original Screenplay contenders that certainly look promising enough on paper.