There’s at least a modest body of opinion out there that Martin McDonagh‘s screenplay for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri deserves the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. Alas, it wasn’t announced this morning as a Writers Guild of America nominee in that category because Three Billboards wasn’t produced under WGA jurisdiction, and is therefore ineligible. I understand the organizational motive, of course, but it’s still bullshit.
The Best Original Screenplay nominees are Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor’s The Shape of Water, Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Steven Rogers for I, Tonya and Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani’s The Big Sick.
The Best Adapted Screenplay noms went to James Ivory’s Call Me by Your Name, Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber’s The Disaster Artist, Dee Rees and Virgil Williams’ Mudbound, Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game, and the Logan screenplay by Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green.
Liz Hannah and Josh Singer‘s original screenplay for The Post wasn’t nominated either. Add this omission to SAG members declining to nominate the Post cast for an ensemble award, and you’re left with “man, The Post can’t catch a break.”
The 70th annual WGA award ceremony will happen simultaneously in New York and Los Angeles on 2.11.
