Because the WGA created its award to be a prize for its members and those who write under its jurisdiction, a Writers Guild nomination is a less accurate predictor of Oscar success than noms from the other three major Hollywood guilds, the Screen Actors Guild, Producers Guild and Directors Guild.WGA rules restrict eligibility to screenplays that were written under the guild’s Minimum Basic Agreement or under a collective bargaining agreement from one of 11 affiliate guilds around the world. As usual, that rule disqualified a number of top screenplays this year, including “The Power of the Dog,” “Cyrano,” “Passing,” “The Lost Daughter,” “Drive My Car” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” in the adapted-screenplay category and “Belfast,” “A Hero,” “The Hand of God,” “Parallel Mothers” and “Prayers for the Stolen” in original screenplay.“Belfast,” “The Power of the Dog” and “The Lost Daughter” in particular are strong favorites for Oscar nominations.In the documentary category, only three screenplays were nominated: “Being Cousteau,” “Exposing Muybridge” and “Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres.”Winners will be announced at the WGA Awards on March 20, one week before the Oscars.The nominations: ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYBeing the Ricardos, Written by Aaron Sorkin;Amazon StudiosDon’t Look Up, Screenplay by Adam McKay, Story by Adam McKay & David Sirota; NetflixThe French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, Screenplay by Wes Anderson, Story by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola & Hugo Guinness & Jason Schwartzman;Searchlight PicturesKing Richard, Written by Zach Baylin; Warner Bros.
‘Don’t Look Up’: Read The Screenplay For Adam McKay’s Satire At The End Of The World
09.01.2022 - 00:07 / deadline.com
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.
Most Hollywood disaster movies are about humanity’s heroic efforts to avert a crisis. From The Towering Inferno to Independence Day, Armageddon and Deep Impact, movies usually show humanity triumph and persevere. Don’t Look Up is not that kind of movie.
In Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, scientists Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discover a comet headed towards Earth. When they alert President Orlean (Meryl Streep), they are frustrated to find she and her staff dismiss their warnings. Mindy and Dibiasky find the media even less receptive to the impending crisis.
McKay and David Sirota’s story and McKay’s script satirizes the forces that fail to respond to a preventable crisis. Politics, media, science deniers and corporate interests thwart Mindy and Dibiasky’s attempts to save the world from this cataclysmic comet.
Don’t Look Up is a satire of real-life environmental concerns such as climate change. In the script, McKay exaggerates the extent to which institutions refuse to address science. In real-life politics, it may be a matter of voting down environmental bills. In Don’t Look Up, Orlean’s staff blatantly changes her position on the comet to serve her re-election.
DiCaprio has used his platform to promote environmental initiatives in real life. The actor said he had been looking for a film with an environmental theme and considered Don’t Look Up “a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
McKay said his first few drafts of the script were dramatic. He was inspired by the 2019 book The Uninhabited Earth, David Wallace-Wells’ analysis of the
‘Don’t Look Up’s’ Musicians on Writing a Song About Pending Doom and Love
Jon Burlingame editorHow do you write a love song that’s also a lament for the impending end of the world?That was the challenge for “Don’t Look Up” composer Nicholas Britell, lyricist Taura Stinson and their co-writers and performers, Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi, as they collaborated on “Just Look Up.” The song is performed in the film and is on the Oscar shortlist for possible nomination in February.The idea came from writer-director Adam McKay, Britell reports. Grande had already been cast as Riley Bina, a pop star who reconciles with her rapper boyfriend (Kid Cudi, as DJ Chello) on the same morning talk show where astronomers (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) reveal that a comet is on a collision course for Earth.
Producers Guild Nominees Range From ‘Belfast’ and ‘CODA’ to ‘Dune’
Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion PicturesBeing the RicardosProducer: Todd Black, p.g.a.BelfastProducers: Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik, Tamar ThomasCODAProducers: Philippe Rousselet, p.g.a., Fabrice Gianfermi, p.g.a., Patrick Wachsberger, p.g.a.Don’t Look UpProducers: Adam McKay, p.g.a., Kevin Messick, p.g.a.DuneProducers: Mary Parent, p.g.a., Cale Boyter, p.g.a., Denis Villeneuve, p.g.a.King RichardProducers: Tim White, p.g.a., Trevor White, p.g.a., Will Smith, p.g.a.Licorice PizzaProducers: Sara Murphy, Paul Thomas Anderson, Adam SomnerThe Power of the DogProducers: Jane Campion, p.g.a., Tanya Seghatchian, p.g.a., Emile Sherman, p.g.a.
‘Don’t Look Up’s Adam McKay On Editor Hank Corwin’s “Bold Leaps” In Leonardo DiCaprio & Jennifer Lawrence Satire – Crew Call Podcast
It stands to reason that a filmmaker reared in comedy improv, Adam McKay, would partner up with an editor, Hank Corwin, who is familiar with cutting for directors known for their impromptu style.
Ron Perlman Says Negative ‘Don’t Look Up’ Criticism Is ‘Sick’ And ‘Twisted’
If you’ve got negative things to say about “Don’t Look Up”, maybe avoid saying them around Ron Perlman.
Ron Perlman Says ‘F— You’ to ‘Don’t Look Up’ Critics: ‘Internet Has Almost Killed Journalism’
Zack Sharf Ron Perlman is hitting back against critics of Adam McKay’s Netflix satire “Don’t Look Up,” in which the “Hellboy” favorite stars opposite an ensemble cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Timothee Chalamet, Joe Morgan and Mark Rylance. Perlman stars in the movie as Colonel Benedict Drask, a war veteran tasked with flying to space to destroy a comet that’s heading toward the planet. “Don’t Look Up” has become one of Netflix’s biggest original films to date since debuting December 24 on the streaming platforms.“Fuck you and your self-importance and this self-perpetuating need to say everything bad about something just so that you can get some attention for something that you had no idea about creating,” Perlman told The Independent.
Cate Blanchett on Her Double Oscar Buzz, Skipping ‘Ricardos’ and New Pedro Almodóvar Movie
Clayton Davis Cate Blanchett delivers two outstanding performances that are both in the awards conversation this year: “Don’t Look Up” and “Nightmare Alley.” The star shepherds grace and a hypnotic trance that has the viewer hanging on every single word she releases.With another impressive turn in Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up,” Blanchett is a contender in what is easily our strongest field of supporting actress contenders in the last 30 years. Blanchett was shortlisted at BAFTA for “Don’t Look Up,” and also picked up a SAG Award nod for Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley.”Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast recently spoke with Blanchett about her double dip in the awards arena this season, and having to turn down the role of Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos,” which ultimately went to Nicole Kidman.
‘J6’: Billy Ray To Direct U.S. Capitol Insurrection Attack Film With Adam McKay Producing
No stranger to political works, writer/director Billy Ray was behind the recent Showtime series “The Comey Rule,” focusing on former FBI director James Comey and President Trump’s attempt to coax the FBI to drop an investigation into his campaign’s and his own personal dealings with Russia. Now, in an announcement that isn’t all that surprising given their outspoken politics on the matter, filmmaker Adam McKay (“Vice,” “Don’t Look Up“) and Ray are looking to unite to focus on the Trump administration by moving forward with a feature film focusing on the U.S.
Hot Package: Billy Ray, Adam McKay Team For ‘J6,’ Film About January 6 Assault On Capitol
EXCLUSIVE: The January 6 assault on the US Capitol, considered the worst attack on democracy since the Civil War, will be the subject of a feature film scripted and to be directed by Billy Ray as his follow up to the highly rated Showtime miniseries The Comey Rule. Joining him on J6 is Adam McKay, who is in the Oscar hunt now for Don’t Look Up. McKay will produce along with Todd Schulman, Josh McLaughlin, Cullen Hoback and Shane Salerno, latter of whom was exec producer on the Jeff Daniel-Brendan Gleeson-starrer The Comey Rule. Deadline has confirmed that the script will be shopped to studios and streamers imminently, and that conversations with equity financiers have already begun.
Adam McKay to Be Honored With Advanced Imaging Society Voices for the Earth Award
Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor“Don’t Look Up” director Adam McKay will receive the Advanced Imaging Society Voices For The Earth Award.The Society will honor McKay at the 12th annual awards ceremony, which will now take place as a luncheon planned for March 4 at the Beverly Hills Hotel.“Considering the incredible obstacles our creative community has worked through to create their brilliant stories in the last year, we knew we needed to find a way to present these awards but to do so in a very safe way,” said Jim Chabin, president of AIS. “We remain flexible and are confident and committed to creatively getting that done on March 4th.”McKay’s credits include “Vice,” “The Big Short” and “Don’t Look Up,” which follows two low-level astronomers played by Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio who go on a giant media tour to warn about an approaching comet that will destroy Earth.
‘Don’t Look Up’ Creator Adam McKay Addresses Criticism Of Netflix Environmental Satire: “You’re Never Going To Make A Movie To Appeal To Everyone”
Adam McKay has addressed criticism of Netflix’s environmental satire Don’t Look Up, stating that “you’re never going to make a movie to appeal to everyone” and praising its global popularity, which has seen the Leonardo DiCaprio pic move up to second in Netflix’s most-watched of all time.
Satire ‘Don’t Look Up’ Gave Six Months To World Destruction By Comet; Leonardo DiCaprio Puts 9-Year Ticking Clock On Climate Crisis: Q&A
EXCLUSIVE: Perhaps no film on his list of narrative star vehicles has subject matter as near and dear to Leonardo DiCaprio as Don’t Look Up, the star studded Adam McKay-directed Netflix satire that substitutes a metaphorical meteor in place of the toll that the climate crisis is taking on the planet. Since his Oscar-winning turn in The Revenant, DiCaprio has done in-person Deadline interviews for all his awards season films. Because of Omicron, this one was done by phone. Here, DiCaprio assessed everything from awards season to moviegoing in the age of Covid, and yes, the real danger of global warming for those who missed the symbolism.
Searchlight Pictures Picks Up Legendary And Hyberobject’s Thriller ‘Fresh’ Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones & Sebastian Stan Ahead Of Sundance Premiere
Searchlight Pictures has acquired worldwide rights to Legendary Entertainment’s thriller Fresh, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People) and Sebastian Stan (Pam & Tommy), ahead of its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival slated for next week. The first feature from director Mimi Cave will stream exclusively across Disney’s platforms, debuting on Hulu in the U.S. on March 4, with a Latin American premiere on Star+ and a Disney+ unveiling in all other territories to take later this spring.
‘Don’t Look Up’ Becomes Netflix’s Second Biggest Film Of All Time
EXCLUSIVE: Don’t Look Up continues to climb the Netflix charts, this week officially becoming the streamer’s second most successful movie of all time.
‘A Manual For Cleaning Women’: Cate Blanchett To Produce & Star In Pedro Almodóvar’s First English-Language Feature
Cate Blanchett (Nightmare Alley, Don’t Look Up) will produce and star in A Manual for Cleaning Women, the first English-language feature from Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar (Parallel Mothers, Pain and Glory), Deadline has confirmed.
‘Don’t Look Up’ Apparently Scores Biggest Weekly Viewership In Netflix Film History
Well, folks, Netflix has a new “biggest thing ever!” to talk about. Before last year, the biggest streaming platform on the planet was pretty hush-hush when it come to talking about viewership numbers for films and TV shows, often giving us nebulous charts and questionable stats.
‘Don’t Look Up’ Officially Breaks Netflix Weekly Viewing Record
Adam McKay’s climate change satire Don’t Look Up is officially a record breaker, with the title attracting the most viewing hours for a movie in a single week in Netflix’s history.