Today the Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced their 2009 nominees for best adapted, original and documentary screenplays. However, before you go examining the noms too closely be sure and know the following scripts were not eligible due to their failure to qualify under WGA rules, which require scripts to be written for productions that are signatories to the guild’s Minimum Basic Agreement, or the agreement of affiliated international guilds.
Those that failed to qualify include:
- Inglourious Basterds
- A Single Man
- The Road
- An Education
- Me and Orson Welles
- In the Loop
- District 9
That list comes courtesy of Steve Pond at The Wrap who added the following films that don’t qualify for adapted and original screenplay categories either:
- Adam
- Antichrist
- Broken Embraces
- The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
- The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
- Moon
- Trucker
- The White Ribbon
- Angels & Demons
- Coco Before Chanel
- The Damned United
- Everybody’s Fine
- The Men Who Stare at Goats
- Red Cliff
- That Evening Sun
- A Woman in Berlin
- Fantastic Mr. Fox
- Ponyo
- The Princess and the Frog
As Pond points out, between the adapted and original screenplay categories there are 83 scripts that qualified compared to the 259 that qualify for an Oscar. So, with that said, here are your nominees:
Adapted Screenplay
- Crazy Heart (Scott Cooper)
- Julie & Julia (Nora Ephron)
- Precious (Geoffrey Fletcher)
- Star Trek (Robert Kurtzman, Roberto Orci)
- Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner)
Original Screenplay
- (500) Days of Summer (Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber)
- Avatar (James Cameron)
- The Hangover (Jon Lucas, Scott Moore)
- The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal)
- A Serious Man (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
Documentary Screenplay
- Against the Tide (Richard Trank)
- Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore)
- The Cove (Mark Monroe)
- Earth Days (Robert Stone)
- Good Hair (Chris Rock & Jeff Stilson and Lance Crouther and Chuck Sklar)
- Soundtrack for a Revolution (Bill Guttentag & Dan Sturman)
Winners will be honored at the 2010 Writers Guild Awards held on Saturday, February 20, 2010, at simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York.
