Late Saturday night it was revealed The King’s Speech won the Producers Guild of America top honor, the Darryl F. Zanuck award. Accepting were producers Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin. The win could be a major sign of things to come as the precursors up to this point have all been in favor of David Fincher’s The Social Network, but such an award from the Producers Guild does not go unnoticed.
On top of The Social Network, The King’s Speech beat out 127 Hours, Black Swan, Inception, The Fighter, The Kids are All Right, The Town, Toy Story 3 and True Grit for the award.
In an email to Deadline, Harvey Weinstein released a statement saying, “It is an incredible honor to be recognized by your peers. The PGA is made up of all the people I admire and respect. I congratulate Tom Hooper, our three amazing producers, and our incredible ensemble cast.” Incredible indeed.
I, for one, am happy to see such a result. Many people took my “The Real Story: The 2011 Awards Race is a Unanimous Bore” article to be some kind of condemnation of The Social Network, whereas it was simply a commentary on the awards race and how predictable and boring it had become. However, with tonight’s results I am suddenly interested again. I am immediately torn between my Best Picture prediction, which has The Social Network at number one.
As it stands now, I would say the January 29th reveal of the Directors Guild of America award certainly stands out (let alone the February 19 announcement from the American Cinema Editors). Should Fincher take the DGA award, he not only will become a near lock for Oscar’s Best Director, but it will be another bonus in The Social Network‘s corner for Best Picture. The following night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards (of which I will again be live-blogging) will also be a major chance for The Social Network to regain a foothold. However, should The Fighter win that one (as is suspected it will) the race remains up in the air.
I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am The King’s Speech won with the PGA. It is exciting. It is electrifying. Do I necessarily agree with it? No, I say give it to True Grit, my favorite movie of 2010. But it makes things interesting. It shows people do actually have different opinions. The sheep have dispersed for the time being.
If you were wondering (and I would assume some of you are), 14 of the 21 Producers Guild winners have gone on to win the Best Picture Oscar including recent winners The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire and No Country for Old Men. Additionally, the producers branch makes up for 446 of the Academy’s 5,755 voting membership. This is a decent chunk, but also reiterates how important the actors branch is with 1,183 members. Those SAG awards on January 30th will be watched closely.
Additionally, Toy Story 3 was awarded as the Best Animated Film of the year and Waiting for “Superman” grabbed an important win for Best Documentary.
I am busy updating my Oscar predictions in preparation for Tuesday morning’s Oscar nominations and will be posting an article discussing them on Monday morning. I have to say, this new twist in the road already has me second guessing my Best Picture predictions.
If you’re interested in the television winners you can get those right here.
