Fuck a duck and holy shit, just when you thought that Awards season might be over and set in stone comes a major game changer, “The Hurt Locker” just beat “Avatar” in the PGA (Producer’s Guild Awards). For the layman out there, if the Director’s Guild, or SAG is the 9 out of 10 (or close enough) bellwether of what happens at the Oscars, well the PGAs are the Guild equivalent of Oscar at the Oscars.
No, they’re not guaranteed to go on to win Oscar, but for example, over the last twenty years, PGA has correctly foreseen the best picture at the Oscars thirteen times. Admittedly, this isn’t scientific proof and not necessarily the greatest number (only 65%). In fact, most of those PGA/Academy Award agreements were in earlier years. Oscar and PGA have seen eye to eye on”Slumdog Millionaire” and “No Country for Old Men,” but they disagreed the previous three years.
But basically if you’re sick of seeing the “Avatar” juggernaut trample everything in site, this is a glimmer of hope. Especially since, if you’re like us, “The Hurt Locker” seems to be the only quality film we can all collectively root for. We hate to be super alarmists, but what does it say if “Avatar” wins Best Picture this year? What kind of message? The Oscars sure, are just the Oscars, a meat parade popularity contest, but the way the film industry is going these days — like all industries, dumbing down and bowing down to the almighty dollar – we’d rather, frankly, live in a world where “The Hurt Locker” is the Best Picture of the year, just sayin’. But, frankly, we’re not convinced it’s gonna happen. Years where the PGA and Oscars have differed have been with populist fare: “Crash” over “Brokeback Mountain,” etc. etc., but it would be nice, no?
Also, we’ve been saying the tremendous dolphin documentary, “The Cove,” has been a lock for the Best Oscar documentary for months and the PGAs offer more evidence that this will be the fact come March. Also, as you’d expect, Pixar’s “Up” took the Best Animated Film which is again, how it will probably go down at Oscar time.
In case you forgot, the 10 films nominated were “District 9” “An Education,” “The Hurt Locker” “Inglourious Basterds” “Invictus,” “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire,” “Star Trek,” “Up” and “Up in the Air,” so it’s kind of amazing to note that the smallest film of this bunch and the one certainly with the smallest box-office total, took the main prize. Can it happen at Oscar? Hmm, we hope so, but man, it still seems rather impossible, no?
Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures:
‘The Hurt Locker”
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
Producer of the Year Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures:
“Up”
Producer: Jonas Rivera
Producer of the Year Award in Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures:
“The Cove”
Producers: Paula DuPre Pesman, Fisher Stevens
The Hurt Locker winning over Avatar is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Isn’t making money a BIG part of producing a film? The Hurt Locker made $16 million WORLDWIDE, while tomorrow Avatar will become the highest grossing film of all time and will most likely cross the $2 billion mark. It simply makes no sense. Hurt Locker was the lowest grossing film on the entire PGA nomination list. You cannot possibly give an award for failure in that sense. You’re not truly rewarding the best “produced” film of the year and only making a mockery of yourself.
This isn't saying The Hurt Locker is a bad movie, cause it's obviously not. But best produced of the year is laughable.
you got it all wrong, bub. It's quality of film. And I hate to break it to you, but biggest box-office does not mean best film. Though clearly in your world it does.
That's not at all what I'm saying. I think everyone agrees on that from looking at Transformers 2 box office alone. I'm saying that box office is a large part of being a producer and working to have your film get out there and get seen, and The Hurt Locker producers failed at that to an extent during it's theatre run. Is this 100% part of what should be considered? No of course not. But you can't ignore those simple numbers.
And I disagree that it's solely quality of film, because these are the guild awards, who reward those individuals for their technical skills and merit. Best Director in DGA's don't always signify best film (although it's the most closely related). I'd guess that rarely does the ACS winner win best picture. With the Oscars, Best Picture is sole quality of film (or at least it's supposed to be).
Best produced film doesn't mean highest-grossing film. The PGA is supposed to go to the film of the greatest quality. Whether the film 'gets out there' should be addressed at an award for marketing, not one meant to measure film quality. And the 'simple numbers' can be ignored. Otherwise, why not just award the film's box office numbers and forget everything else.
Yeah, it really has nothing to do with box office whatsoever.
Years where the PGA and Oscars have differed have been with populist fare: "Crash" over "Brokeback Mountain," etc. etc.,
I'll never understand that. Because who exactly did that appeal to? I don't remember anyone talking about that movie before it won the Oscar, it clearly seemed to be a slot filler, and it made a lot less money than Brokeback. Maybe by populist you're only talking about dumbed down, but shouldn't it have been, you know, actually popular to merit that title?
Crash was just the anti-BBM. BBM was a film that divided a lot of people, mostly because of its content but also because of its hype. That drew the backlash.
Crash didn't start off as any kind of favorite, except for Roger Ebert who kept beating its drum. In the lead up to the Oscars though, Crash began making an impression in some circles and won the BEST CAST ENSEMBLE award at SAG. Thus, it became the only film which could dethrone BBM.
All the people who didn't want BBM to win, plus the small group already praising Crash and a clever Oscar campaign by Lionsgate, put it over the top and it beat out the Oscar favorite.
I'll say one thing about this years Oscar race, compared with past years, it's a lot more exciting not knowing who the winner is going to be by the middle of January.
To cineastejohn: There is a lot of "producing" which has nothing to do with the marketing, distribution, and exhibition of a film, which is where box office comes in.
And for the record, if Avatar wins the Oscar, I will vomit all over my living room.
Being a good producer is about doing the absolute best you can with what you have. Kathryn Bigelow, as a director, is not going to be handed the same amount of money as James Cameron. She and her producing team did what they came to do. Let's remember that the estimated production budget was $11 million, so for them to make $16 worldwide, that is certainly not failure. Obviously a film with a marketing budget of over $200 mill is going to have a bigger box office than The Hurt Locker.
Give it a rest.