This Thursday, January 10, the 2013 Oscar nominations will be announced by the show’s host, Seth MacFarlane, and Emma Stone at 5:30 a.m. PT and I need to do a little finalizing when it comes to my predictions before then and today I’m starting with the Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay categories as I hadn’t updated either for quite some time and some shuffling needed to be done.
At the end of last week the Writers Guild The Master got a little needed attention as it has been fading in the polls as of late.
Directly below I offer my ranked predictions for each category along with a few additional thoughts and a link to where you can see the full field for both categories. Looking them over at this time, I think the only potential change before Thursday may be that fifth slot in the Original Screenplay category, though I’m just not sure Rian Johnson‘s screenplay for Looper can build enough steam. What do you think?
Original Screenplay
As far as I can tell, there is no serious competition when it comes to Mark Boal‘s screenplay for Zero Dark Thirty and Django Unchained, The Master and, increasingly, Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola‘s screenplay for Moonrise Kingdom seem to be the most likely contenders for nominations. It’s that fifth slot that always proves troublesome and at this point I see a fight between Flight and Looper, the latter of which has been picking up steam since being named Best Original Screenplay by the National Board of Review.
- Mark Boal for Zero Dark Thirty
- Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained
- Paul Thomas Anderson for The Master
- Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola for Moonrise Kingdom
- John Gatins for Flight
You can browse all my contenders in Best Original Screenplay and their rankings right here.
Adapted Screenplay
Tony Kushner‘s screenplay for Lincoln remains the front-runner and I’m feeling rather confident in my follow-up predictions as well, though The Perks of Being a Wallflower is coming on pretty strong and I could see it picking off Les Miserables or Life of Pi, the latter of which seems most vulnerable.
- Tony Kushner, John Logan and Paul Webb for Lincoln
- Chris Terrio for Argo
- David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook
- William Nicholson for Les Miserables
- David Magee for Life of Pi
You can browse all my contenders in Best Adapted Screenplay and their rankings right here.
EXTRA: If you haven’t done so yet, be sure to click here and browse my selection of 29 Oscar contending screenplays available to download for free.
