An Early Look at Screenplay – Original and Adapted

The screenplay race, like the director race, is ordinarily tightly tied to Best Picture. Though it can also sometimes be the “token” award for a film people liked but not enough to put into the Best Picture race. You hear that a lot, “It’ll get in for screenplay.” Like, Get Out will get in for screenplay was a low estimate of how that movie would end up doing. It’s sort of like, you get your foot in the door but you don’t get all the way in.

Sometimes the screenplay itself really does deserve a nomination because only the writing stands out, like Wolverine.

Since so many films don’t qualify for the WGA — this year or any other – the WGA is an incomplete indicator. But when it doubt, look at Best Picture, and name recognition.

For whatever reason, the trend lately is for for directors of Best Picture winners to write or co-write their own scripts. Let’s go back since 1970 to see how they divide:

Films whose directors wrote or co-wrote the screenplays:
2018: Green Book
2017: The Shape of Water
2016: Moonlight
2015: Spotlight
2014: Birdman
2013: 12 Years a Slave
2011: The Artist
2007: No Country for Old Men
2003: ROTK
1997: Titanic
1996: The English Patient
1998: The Last Emperor
1986: Platoon
1983: Terms of Endearment
1979: Kramer vs. Kramer
1977: Annie Hall
1974: The Godfather II
1972: The Godfather

Films written by someone other than the director:
2012: Argo
2010: The King’s Speech
2009: The Hurt Locker
2008: Slumdog Millionaire
2006: The Departed
2005: Brokeback Mountain
2004: Million Dollar Baby
2002: Chicago
2001: A Beautiful Mind
2000: Gladiator
1999: American Beauty
1998: Shakespeare in Love
1995: Braveheart
1994: Forrest Gump
1993: Schindler’s List
1992: Unforgiven
1991: Silence of the Lambs
1990: Dances with Wolves
1989: Driving Miss Daisy
1988: Rain Man
1985: Out of Africa
1984 Amadeus
1982: Gandhi
1981: Chariots of Fire
1980: Ordinary People
1976: Rocky
1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
1973: The Sting
1971: The French Connection
1970: Patton

It is far more common in the era of the expanded, or preferential ballot, to have Best Picture winners where the director wrote or co-wrote the screenplay. In fact, you have to go all the way back to Argo to find a year where Best Picture was written by someone other than the director.  It also happened in 2009 with The Hurt Locker and in 2010 with the King’s Speech.

Why the recent change? I don’t know. But I do know that, in general, there are more writer/directors than there ever have been where the Oscar race is concerned.

In the era of the expanded ballot — 2009 to now — how many screenplay nominees are also Best Picture nominees:

Original:
2009-4/5
2010-4/5
2011-2/5
2012-3/5
2013-4/5
2014-3/5
2015-2/5
2016-3/5
2017-4/5
2018-4/5

Adapted:
2009-4/5
2010-5/5
2011-3/5
2012-5/5
2013-4/5
2014-4/5
2015-4/5
2016-5/5
2017-1/5
2018-2/5

Despite outliers of the last two years, the adapted category by far has had more Best Picture contenders than original screenplays. Which makes sense, considering the writing might be honored overall more so than the movie – like The Big Sick or First Reformed. BUT in the past two years, films have shown up here that we can assume might have gotten in for Best Picture if voters had ten nomination slots and not five.

Original Screenplay

There is, as expected, an abundance of original screenplays this year that look like nomination material, and not as many adapted. Of those that are also written or co-written by their directors, there are:

Original:
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino
1917, Sam Mendes, Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach
Parasite, Bong Joon-Ho, Jin Won Han
Uncut Gems, The Safdie brothers plus Ronald Bronstein
The Farewell, Lulu Wang
The Report, Scott Z Burns
Last Black Man in San Francisco, Joe Talbot, Jimmie Fails

Adapted:
Jojo Rabbit, Taika Waititi
Little Women, Greta Gerwig
Joker, Todd Phillips, Scott Silver
Hustlers, Lorene Scafaria
Motherless Brooklyn, Edward Norton
Just Mercy, Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Lanham

And filling out the original category with writers who didn’t direct:
Richard Jewell, Billy Ray
Dolemite is My Name, Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski
Waves, Trey Edward Shultz
Ford V. Ferrari, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth
Rocketman, Lee Hall
Queen & Slim, Lena Waithe
Late Night, Mindy Kaling
The Farewell, Lulu Wang

And adapted:
The Irishman, Steve Zaillian
Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster
The Two Popes, Anthony McCarten
The Banker, David Lewis Smith, Stan Younger
Booksmart, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, Katie Silberman

It doesn’t take a genius to see that original is packed way too full and adapted has slightly more wiggle room.

Right away you can see how screenplay might look, give or take:

Original
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino
1917, Sam Mendes, Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach
Dolemite is My Name, Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski
Parasite, Bong Joon-Ho, Jin Won Han

Adapted
Jojo Rabbit, Taika Waititi
Little Women, Greta Gerwig
The Irishman, Steve Zaillian
The Two Popes, Anthony McCarten
Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster

We are still quite a ways away from locking any of this down. This is merely a starting point. But Joker, being in the adapted category, might have a better shot at getting a nod than it would in the original category. It’s too soon to know for sure on that one.