POLL! Producers Guild Preview – A Preferential Ballot and Ten Nominees

This has turned out to be a mightily tricky awards race. Believe it or not, the early swing by the Critics Choice has altered how we all view the consensus, and last night’s record breaking Golden Globe win for La La Land has some of us more confused than ever. A close read will leave you confused. An easy read will say, what’s the big deal? La La Land wins the whole thing and wins it big and it isn’t even close and it’s been La La Land since Telluride, like it always is, every year. Okay, fine. I can buy that. When you spend a year on a race it’s harder to shrug and say okay, it’s all over. But it could definitely be all over.

Tomorrow, the Producers Guild will announce their ten nominees. Generally speaking, they match roughly 6 or 7 out of 8 or 9 Best Picture nominees.

One thing I noticed in looking over history was that in general the PGA nominees have been named in at least one other guild. In the cases that they weren’t, they were named by AFI in their yearly top ten.

For our purposes, right now, the two movies that may show up at the PGA and/or Oscar that haven’t really showed up elsewhere would be:

Silence
Sully

One film is the most that has ever landed on the PGA’s list that has not been named by the AFI, the SAG, or the Eddie. There is, just about every year, one movie that lands with the PGA by surprise – it’s either just on the AFI or sometimes not even that (Ex Machina). It makes it kind of tricky for predictions, but for the most part, your nominees WILL HAVE something from somewhere. Let’s start with the films we presume have some strength heading in.

Moonlight (AFI, SAG, ACE, WGA)
Manchester by the Sea (AFI, SAG, ACE, WGA)
La La Land (AFI, ACE, WGA)
Arrival (AFI, ACE, WGA)
Fences (AFI, SAG, WGA)
Hidden Figures (SAG, WGA)
Hell or High Water (AFI, ACE, WGA)
Hacksaw Ridge (AFI, ACE)
Deadpool (ACE, WGA)
The Lobster (ACE, WGA)
Sully (AFI)
Silence (AFI)
Loving (WGA)
Nocturnal Animals (WGA)
Hail, Caesar (ACE)
The Jungle Book (ACE)
Captain Fantastic (SAG)

I think that’s mostly it. Now you have to somehow cobble together ten out of these titles. If there is one film that hasn’t been named anywhere yet, and could surprise and land in the race like Ex Machina did for the PGA, or The Blind Side or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close did with the Oscars? Most of us are betting that movie will be:

Lion

Lion doesn’t have anything behind it so far except Dev Patel nominated for the SAG and its Globe nominations. And yet, it’s got a strong message and is gaining word of mouth steadily but surely. They are working it behind the scenes big time, and I keep hearing people tell me how much they loved it – one Academy member I spoke with named it the best of the year, so even if it doesn’t make PGA, it could make Oscar’s list in that last slot.

So – I’d be curious, of these titles, which ones you all would choose – you can take our poll below, or our contest. I would probably go with:

Moonlight (AFI, SAG, ACE, WGA)
Manchester by the Sea (AFI, SAG, ACE, WGA)
La La Land (AFI, ACE, WGA)
Arrival (AFI, ACE, WGA)
Fences (AFI, SAG, WGA)
Hidden Figures (SAG, WGA)
Hell or High Water (AFI, ACE, WGA)
Hacksaw Ridge (AFI, ACE)

For the last two, I am having a hard time choosing. I’m really really tempted to pick Deadpool. Sully and/or Silence is also giving me stress. And Lion. But I guess I have to do it, so I’d go:

Sully (AFI) or Loving (WGA)
Lion

No Guts, No Glory: Deadpool

But it could really go either way – it’s doubtful that all of the AFI’s choices will go all the way – probably not all – maybe 8 or 9 out of 10 at the most.

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