Pete Hammond reports that there will be a disconnect between Whiplash’s category confusion. The Academy has decided the film’s script should be adapted since a short film existed before the feature film. The film was taken from Damien Chazzelle’s original screenplay as a feature. The short is the adaptation. The Writers Guild has deemed it original. Hammond got this desperate email from the screenwriter of Flight:
“I just tried to vote for Whiplash for a Screenplay Oscar nom and I couldn’t find it as a selection on my ‘help list’—I searched and searched—I finally switched to the ADAPTED CATEGORY and I found it there. The Academy has made a HUGE mistake!!! They are gonna have to ask the writers’ branch members to re-vote….and it makes this whole voting process off kilter. HELP!!!…Unless Whiplash is NOT an original–am I crazy? Haven’t I read 100 articles about Damien wherein he tells the story of his life being the inspiration for the flick?”
The question then becomes whether voters will vote for something else in original and then see Whiplash in adapted and NOT vote for it there because it isn’t in original. Yeah, I don’t get it. I think Whiplash’s chances of a nomination are WAY higher in adapted. Here’s why.
Here are the original frontrunners:
Original Screenplay
Wes Anderson, Grand Budapest Hotel (LOCKED)
Alejandro Inarritu et al, Birdman (LOCKED)
Richard Linklater, Boyhood (LOCKED)
E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman, Foxcatcher
Paul Webb, Selma (NOT WGA eligible)
JC Chandor, A Most Violent Year
Mike Leigh, Mr. Turner (NOT WGA eligible)
Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, Interstellar
Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (The LEGO Movie)
Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias, Love is Strange
Gina Pryce Bythwood, Beyond, the Lights
Dear White People, Justin Simien (NOT WGA eligible)
Compare that to Adapted:
Adapted Screenplay
Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl (LOCKED, hopefully)
Graham Moore, The Imitation Game (LOCKED)
Paul Thoman Anderson, Inherent Vice+*
Anthony McCarten, The Thoery of Everything* (NOT WGA eligible)
Nick Hornby, Wild*
You can see that adapted is much more wide open than original, and with Selma out of the original for the WGA Damien Chazelle and Whiplash should have no problem getting in, no matter what category it’s in.
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Problem is… I don’t think Whiplash deserves an Oscar nom at Screenplay, in either cathegory. It’s just A-B-C with a couple of predictable twists at the end, once you realize what’s the movie about. But, whatever, it’s the Oscars.
Here’s what I don’t understand: Don’t any of the award campaigners at Sony read the official rules? I can see them trying to make the case either way, but if it was my job to pull in the Oscar Noms and I knew that there was any possibility of confusion, I would have been on it the day that ballots first went out (if not sooner), instead of at this late stage of the game. (Unless, of course, my timing is off and it’s actually better to have this hit the news cycle when ballots are being filled out, instead of when they first arrive?)
Given the lateness of this info; I would hope the oscar ballot counters would count any vote for “Whiplash”, no matter which category, as what it is… A vote for the screenplay of “Whiplash”. If it gets enough votes to hit the top five between the two categories The Academy should give the film the nomination in their chosen category. The voters are voting for the film. Whether or not it’s an original or adapted vote doesn’t matter. Especially if it’s their fault in not letting the voters know in time.
So….
Boyhood
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Those 3 seem like safe bets with Mr. Turner, Selma, Nightcrawler, Foxcatcher and maybe A Most Violent Year duking it out for the final 2 spots. As much as I like Nolan if they nominate his screenplay they have lost their minds.
So just to be clear, AMPAS is recognizing Whiplash only as an adapted screenplay and votes for it as an original won’t count? I was wondering if it was possible we’d see a Barry Fitzgerald situation for Chazelle and he’d end up nominated for BOTH original and adapted.
Ironically, AMPAS might’ve done ”Whiplash” a favor by letting it enter the less-competitive Adaptation category.
This was great news for ”Nightcrawler” since it opens a slot in Original Screenplay.
But I still think the favorite to beat in Adaptation is ”The Imitation Game,” especially with Weinstein’s new Oscar campaign: Don’t just vote for the movie; vote to recognize this overlooked gay, code-breaking genius who was ”persecuted for his sexuality.” Its latest ads include quotes from the execs at Google, Twitter, PayPal and Yahoo! They don’t rave about the film; they rave about Turing’s scientific contributions. Soon to come: Quotes from LGBT leaders, raving about Turing, the gay hero. But don’t worry, Oscar voters, the movie doesn’t actually show Turing BEING or ACTING gay. 😉
Adapted has, what?
Gone Girl
The Imitation Game
Theory of Everything
Inherent Vice
Wild
Unbroken (definitely in the mix, no matter how much people think its dead)
Still Alice
The Homesman
Now we have Whiplash. Sure seems like it can sneak in there easier than in Original. But I wonder how many people who have mailed-in their ballots already had put it in Original. Hard to say.
Here’s hoping for a Whiplash adapted screenplay win at the Oscars! My instincts say it’s stronger placed than Gone Girl for screenplay. Haven’t yet seen The Imitation Game.
Still hope Whiplash gets nominated for adapted screenplay despite confusion! (And director, and editing…)
Christophe, I immediately thought the same thing about the AD Simulated Ballot. I’m assuming it’s just staying in Original because that would be a fuck ton of work for Rob to try and course correct now.
It’s probably much more likely to be nominated now that it’s in the Adapted Screenplay field. As Sasha notes above, that’s a srsly thin field this year, so it ought to have no trouble pushing past some of the less likely contenders in that category.
A shame that its nomination might have to arise from category confusion. The Academy rly is so easy to fool. Makes one understand the music branch’s decision to refuse eligibility to Birdman’s score. They can’t tell the different between original and adapted there either, it seems.
(LOCKED.)
(LOCKED.)
(LOCKED.)
Whiplash is locked either way. All this does is lock up Nightcrawler in Original.
I’m guessing if someone really wants to vote for Whiplash they will check several times both categories until finding it. Otherwise, they’re not that much into it, if they can’t bother to do, so. Also, for those voters who still prefer their paper ballots, let’s remember they receive a reminder list telling them how scripts are being classified, so I hope they check the list before casting their votes and make sure they see eye to eye with the Acad. on every entry, better be safe than sorry!
My head hurts from this. All online ballots should be tossed out with respect to BOTH screenplay categories and their voters given a revote. But who knows how many ways in which such a revote would impact the race in other ways (like Selma losing steam while Nightcrawler gains, just by virtue of the guild precursors).
The whole concept of official online voting sounds dangerous, if it’s anything like the polls and simulated ballots on this site. It seems there’s more room for human error, and I mean from the voters, not the ballot makers. You don’t scroll down in a drop-down menu to see Whiplash alphabetically in the end and it misses.
Selma is not eligible for writing at the oscars ?
Victor, a writer has to be a member of the Writers Guild to qualify for the WGA prizes. Selma’s screenplay is eligible for Oscar consideration.
What un utter mess. I frankly find it ridiculous that Whiplash is considered adapted, the short was based on the full feature, so how can it be considered adapted?
Secondly, what if voters write Whiplash on the Original Screenplay ballot? Will their votes be counted? Will they be invalid? Will there be a re-vote?
Clownish Academy.
Ooh, this is worrisome. With only a couple of days left for everybody to vote, I don’t see a lot of Academy members bothering to go back on their votes in order to include Whiplash in Adapted — and that’s if word even manages to get out about the film’s misplacing, which isn’t necessarily going to happen. A circumstantial snub a la Selma seems bound to happen. Which is a shame, because the Adapted category is in SERIOUS need of better competition.
Victor, the ones she lists as ineligible are with the Writer’s Guild not the Oscars.
Selma is not eligible for writing at the oscars ?
But what if it’s up for Adapted Screenplay — and WINS?! It’s transparently not an adaptation in any real sense, and a win in this category would rob an actual adaptation (looking at you, Gone Girl).
I think Whiplash will get nominated in whatever writing category it appears in, but yeah, having category confusion is never a particularly good thing.
Actually, though, if Whiplash is in the adapted category, I think (if nominated) that it could compete for an adapted screenplay win along with The Imitation Game and Gone Girl. I think it would have been nominated in original as well, but no way it would have won that category against The Grand Budapest Hotel, Birdman and Boyhood. In adapted, it might have an outside chance at the screenplay win, depending on how deep this passion for Whiplash runs.
I think this category switch really helps a movie like Nightcrawler as well, which would have had a bit of a hard time fighting its way onto the crowded original screenplay list. With Whiplash out of the way, and Selma in an odd state of “will they or won’t they?”, a Nightcrawler screenplay nod definitely looks more doable. And if it gets a lead actor nomination and a screenplay nomination, then a Best Picture nomination seems more possible as well (although at the moment, I’m still not sure if I’m going to predict that).
Let’s not forget the real story here! Whiplash is entered as an Original Screenplay in the AD simulation. Will it be moved to Adapted to fit the Academy’s criteria? Or will it remain in Original to fit common sense?
My concern is that it took, what, a week for someone to raise the alarm about this?! I’d guess that suggests two things:
1) not that many people were even looking to put Whiplash in their Original Screenplay votes in the first place, which then means either:
2a) they didn’t go seeking it out to vote for in Adapted either, or
2b) they came across it in Adapted when looking for SOMETHING, ANYTHING to vote for there and then voted for it
But also, wouldn’t this only be true of those members voting via e-ballot? On a non-e-ballot will voters have included it in their Original votes without realizing that it wasn’t eligible there? When those votes are voided, they can’t justly be transferred to the Adapted category because there’s no way of knowing where those voters would have placed Whiplash against a different field of screenplays.
I reignite my argument for ONE writing category to rule them all.
I hope so, but you never know with stupid old white people.
Then again Whiplash is the kind of film with a passionate fanbase supporting it. Like the Flight screenwriter. They should vote for it whenever they see it.
Call me crazy though because Adapted Screenplay now feels competitive. Beyond Whiplash, Imitation, Gone Girl, and Theory (seemingly locked but deserves to be vulnerable), think Wild, Inherent Vice, and Still Alice all make sense on paper for that last spot. In contrast, Original Screenplay has a lot of would-be contenders that I can easily see missing given their lukewarm reception. Whiplash switching over has suddenly freed up a space for something like A Most Violent Year or even Interstellar, if not the terribly predictable choice of Foxcatcher.