This weekend I put together my first Oscar predictions for Best Adapted and Original Screenplay. I will publish the Original Screenplay predictions tomorrow and begin with the Adapted Screenplays today, but I have got to say these are not easy categories, especially without having read any of the scripts or seen several of the top contending movies. But hey, that’s where the fun in predicting these things comes in.
Personally, I see the Adapted category being more competitive than the Original one this year. I added a couple of screenplays to my Original predictions just to beef it up a bit whereas the Adapted category pretty much filled itself out. At the top I have Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash‘s screenplay for The Descendants, which I have seen and the screenplay is one of the things that truly works, with the film feeling complimentary to what was on the page rather than being an interpretation of it. This is probably due to Payne serving as both director and screenwriter, but that’s a luxury he gets to enjoy. Of course, I say this without having read the actual screenplay so perhaps what’s on the page is a Michael Bay action-thriller and Payne interpreted it much differently, but I doubt it.
The next two slots belong to two films that are simply here based on pedigree since I haven’t seen either of them and neither have many audiences.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was written by Eric Roth, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Forrest Gump who was also nominated for his screenplays for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Munich and The Insider. To think he’s not a top contender would be foolish, especially since we’re talking about a drama based on the events surrounding September 11th.
Moving to Steven Spielberg’s War Horse we have a screenplay based on a novel by Michael Morpurgo, which was then turned into a Tony-award winning play by Nick Stafford, with a script by Richard Curtis, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Lee Hall, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Billy Elliot. I mean, these are easy titles to place in the top five.
I had a bit of a harder time with spots four and five as several films could occupy these slots but I ended up with The Ides of March and Moneyball. Ides was written by the Oscar-nominated duo behind Good Night, and Good Luck, George Clooney and Grant Heslov, and Moneyball by a pair of Oscar winning screenwriters in Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List). Perhaps I’m taking the easy road with those two picks, but risks are very rarely rewarded in the Oscar guessing game.
My first three runners up are The Help, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, three films that could very easily move into those four and five slots and, who knows, maybe War Horse and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close will disappoint.
I have included my top five directly below as always, but you can check out my full field of 14 contenders right here with commentary on each one and you’ll note a new feature with my screenplay predictions this year where you can download the screenplay for any of the contenders where a screenplay is available. Today, the only screenplay I have in this category is for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which I already told you about right here.
So head on over to the full predictions so you can see what to keep an eye out for as I will be adding screenplays as soon as they are available by the studios. So far Focus is the only one to make them available, but more should be arriving soon.
- The Descendants (written by Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (written by Eric Roth)
- War Horse (written by Richard Curtis and Lee Hall)
- The Ides of March (written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov)
- Moneyball (written by Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian with a story by Stan Chervin)
