HER And CAPTAIN PHILLIPS Take Writers Guild Prizes

The screenplays for Spike Jonze’s futuristic romantic drama Her and the true-life tale told in Captain Phillips took the top honors at Saturday night’s Writers Guild of America’s annual award ceremony.

Jonze’s win in the Guild’s Original Screenplay category could presage how things will play out in the same category at the Academy Awards in March given that the five nominees for the award from both organizations are the same. Also, it has been 13 years since a WGA winner lost the Original Screenplay Oscar when Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous beat out DGA winner Kenneth Lonerga’s You Can Count On Me in 2000. Of course, you could argue that that is a streak due to be broken and it is possible that David O. Russell and Eric Singer’s American Hustle could be the one to do that.

The Best Adapted Screenplay win by writer Billy Ray is not as much a clear indicator as to how things will play out at the Oscars given that one of the favorites in the category for the Academy Awards – John Ridley’s 12 Years A Slave – had been ruled ineligible for the WGAs.

Additionally, Sarah Polley’s documentary Stories We Tell won the award for best screenplay for a documentary feature film. The documentary is not one of the five nominated films for the Academy Award’s Best Documentary Oscar.