'The King's Speech,' in a Shocker, Takes Producers Guild Honors
Nice to have a little bit of variety
Late Saturday night it was revealed The King's Speech won the Producers Guild of America top honor, the Darryl F. Zanuck award. Accepting were producers Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin. The win could be a major sign of things to come as the precursors up to this point have all been in favor of David Fincher's The Social Network, but such an award from the Producers Guild does not go unnoticed.
On top of The Social Network, The King's Speech beat out 127 Hours, Black Swan, Inception, The Fighter, The Kids are All Right, The Town, Toy Story 3 and True Grit for the award.
In an email to Deadline, Harvey Weinstein released a statement saying, "It is an incredible honor to be recognized by your peers. The PGA is made up of all the people I admire and respect. I congratulate Tom Hooper, our three amazing producers, and our incredible ensemble cast." Incredible indeed.
I, for one, am happy to see such a result. Many people took my "The Real Story: The 2011 Awards Race is a Unanimous Bore" article to be some kind of condemnation of The Social Network, whereas it was simply a commentary on the awards race and how predictable and boring it had become. However, with tonight's results I am suddenly interested again. I am immediately torn between my Best Picture prediction, which has The Social Network at number one.
As it stands now, I would say the January 29th reveal of the Directors Guild of America award certainly stands out (let alone the February 19 announcement from the American Cinema Editors). Should Fincher take the DGA award, he not only will become a near lock for Oscar's Best Director, but it will be another bonus in The Social Network's corner for Best Picture. The following night's Screen Actors Guild Awards (of which I will again be live-blogging) will also be a major chance for The Social Network to regain a foothold. However, should The Fighter win that one (as is suspected it will) the race remains up in the air.
I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am The King's Speech won with the PGA. It is exciting. It is electrifying. Do I necessarily agree with it? No, I say give it to True Grit, my favorite movie of 2010. But it makes things interesting. It shows people do actually have different opinions. The sheep have dispersed for the time being.
If you were wondering (and I would assume some of you are), 14 of the 21 Producers Guild winners have gone on to win the Best Picture Oscar including recent winners The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire and No Country for Old Men. Additionally, the producers branch makes up for 446 of the Academy's 5,755 voting membership. This is a decent chunk, but also reiterates how important the actors branch is with 1,183 members. Those SAG awards on January 30th will be watched closely.
Additionally, Toy Story 3 was awarded as the Best Animated Film of the year and Waiting for "Superman" grabbed an important win for Best Documentary.
I am busy updating my Oscar predictions in preparation for Tuesday morning's Oscar nominations and will be posting an article discussing them on Monday morning. I have to say, this new twist in the road already has me second guessing my Best Picture predictions.
If you're interested in the television winners you can get those right here.
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Wow. That's an interesting twist. Certainly Weinstein is good at last minute pushes.
So glad the PGA go it right. I loved Social Network, but I don't see it as a Best Picture. I could easily see this as a made-for-TV movie (minus the wonderful writing, of course).
In 2002 the BBC produced "Bertie and Elizabeth", which aired in the US on Masterpiece Theatre. It focused on the same events that brought George VI to the throne, including the famous speech and the difficulty he had delivering it. (It does not focus on the relationship with his speech therapist.)
At least it makes a couple of waves and makes things momentarily a little more possible again.
thank God!!
Okay, now we just need something else to win the Screen Actors Guild and things will start to look a little more promising!
The Fighter should win SAG ensemble.
Oh my God, STOP IT ALREADY! There is no sheep mentality anywhere. Is it so hard for you to understand that the reason The Social Network has been winning is because almost everybody independently liked it.
Amen
i see what brad is saying, because even though the social network may have been the best picture of the year, it wasnt so great that it was miles ahead of any of the other good films to come out this year.
however, i also agree that i see little evidenc of critical groups following sheep mentality. these groups are never afraid to be different (in 2008 multiple groups picked wall-e as their best picture).
yes, this win makes things a little more interesting, but i still see social network as the favorite. the fact that it is in the discussion for score, acting, directing, producing, cinematography, costume design and editing means that it has support from every corner of the academy.
all the producers won't vote in one large block (its not an electoral college), and for all we know the kings speech won by one or two votes. this certainly makes things more interesting, but there needs to be a little more momentum before this thing turns into a true race again.
I guess it's time for me to check out the film soon.
Okay, hopefully people can stop bitching about how predictable and boring they think the race is.
Yes. It is so annoying to see people whine about such a silly thing.
They won't because they have a point. From the Globes to the SAGs to the Oscars as the same people win in the same categories, it makes the awards seasons more and more predictable.
This year is no different. Even thought it has a front runner, the race itself lacks the excitement of years past because the competition, although loaded with fine films, lacks anything truly outstanding.
I liked "The Social Network" a lot. I also thought "The King's Speech" was terrific too. Very different films, but, to me, neither is necessarily better than the other and I would be fine if either won.
The Kings Speech is a good movie, but I'll be heartbroken if TSN doesn't take the big prize.
It's THE movie of 2010.
This is pretty surprising. Could be they just wanted to recognize another film, or that there's a bit of a backlash to The Social Network's dominance (at least among producers), or that Harvey Weinstein just passed a lot of cash under the table. Interesting to note that there was obviously no such backlash against Slumdog, though it didn't dominate the critics groups as completely as The Social Network (but it did win the Globe, PGA, DGA, SAG, BAFTA, and Best Picture at the Oscars).
Another interesting thing to consider is what films will be in the news over the next month. Obviously this is a big help for The King's Speech, and being the most nominated film Tuesday morning. That doesn't matter a whole lot, but it does mean every article will be something along the lines of "King's Speech leads Oscar nominations." That's publication and awareness that The King's Speech will be getting that The Social Network won't. Fincher is going to win the DGA, and The King's Speech will sweep the BAFTAs. The SAGs are interesting. I feel like The Fighter is the favorite, but if The Social Network wins that should really lock things up. If The King's Speech somehow wins, that would really change the outlook for the Oscars. But I think saying The King's Speech is all of a sudden the frontrunner based on the PGAs alone is ridiculous. Sure it's a contender, and things probably aren't as wrapped up as they looked a week ago, but the only things that would make me question The Social Network's frontrunner status would be Fincher losing at the DGAs and/or The King's Speech winning at the SAGs.
I still have a hard time believing the Academy would choose The King's Speech over The Social Network. They're obviously desperately trying to stay relevant(hence the expansion to ten films) and I feel like this is the ultimate test of relevance. The King's Speech is the old guard, period drama stuff they've always liked, and The Social Network is at least perceived by many as the ultimate contemporary, immediately relevant to now film. Of course you can never underestimate the ability of Harvey Weinstein to get/buy votes, especially when the film is right up the Academy's alley.
Another thought regarding The King's Speech, since I'm apparently the only person in the world who didn't love it…it was one of several of the top films this year where you knew how it would end. The Social Network, 127 Hours, The Fighter, and True Grit (if you'd seen the '69 version or read the book) are the others that come to mind. And The King's Speech was the only one where I just wasn't emotionally invested at the end. I just felt like, "Okay, he's going to give his speech and do fine and that's it." I didn't have this emotional feeling of accomplishment for the character as I did in 127 Hours or The Fighter, or the profound sense of a thunderous climax as in The Social Network or True Grit. And that's part of why I rank it below all those films (as well as Inception, Black Swan, and Toy Story).
More likely that voters were motivated by the insane ammount of starpower in King's Speech. Helena Bonham, Michael Gambon, Timothy Spall, Geoffrey Rush and of course Colin Firth, are all quite big names.
By contrast, the closest Social Network has to starpower is pop star-turned-actor Justin Timberlake
The King's Speech is better than The Social Network??….umm..k
Yes, it's true. The Social Network was far from the best film of the year. Clever wisecracks do not a masterpiece make.