Talk about a bit of a shocker, while many thought Tate Taylor (The Help) may be the name to knock Steven Spielberg out of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) nominations this morning it ended up being David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) as this is yet another sign War Horse may not be the contender many thought it may be. Will it even be nominated for Best Picture?
Along with Fincher the nominees included Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), Alexander Payne (The Descendants) and Martin Scorsese (Hugo). All four of those names match my current Oscar predictions for the category with Spielberg being my fifth, but now I may have to rethink that.
Looking at my current predictions in the Best Director category, Fincher actually sits in the #11 slot with several names such as Bennett Miller (Moneyball), George Clooney (The Ides of March), Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), Stephen Daldry (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) and Tate Taylor (The Help) above him. Time for a re-evaluation maybe.
The award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film will be announced on Saturday, January 28 and at that time people will most likely be penciling that name in as Oscar’s Best Director recipient as the DGA Award has traditionally been one of the industry’s most accurate barometers for who will win the Best Director Academy Award. Only six times since the DGA Awards began in 1948 has the winner not gone on to win the corresponding Academy Award. The last time the winner differed was 2002 when Rob Marshall won the DGA Award for Chicago and Roman Polanski received the Academy Award for The Pianist.
Last year was no different when Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) won over David Fincher (The Social Network) at both the DGAs and Oscars. Who will be this year’s winner? Hazanavicius is my current front-runner but Payne is looking strong in my eyes.
Here, again, are this year’s DGA nominees in alphabetical order and you can click here for my BRAND NEW Oscar predictions in this category and yes, Spielberg remains in my top five.
- Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris)
- David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
- Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
- Alexander Payne (The Descendants)
- Martin Scorsese (Hugo)
