Writers Guild Nominations Include ‘Don’t Look Up,’ ‘Licorice Pizza,’ ‘King Richard’
The screenplays for “Don’t Look Up,” “Licorice Pizza,” “Nightmare Alley” and “King Richard” have been nominated for the 2022 Writers Guild Awards by the WGA, West and WGA, East, the two guilds announced on Thursday.
Other nominees are “CODA,” “Dune,” “West Side Story” and “tick, tick…BOOM!,” which join “Nightmare Alley” in the adapted-screenplay category, and “Being the Ricardos” and “The French Dispatch,” which join “Don’t Look Up,” “Licorice Pizza” and “King Richard” as original-screenplay nominees.
Eligible screenplays that were missing from the slate of nominees include Joel Coen’s Shakespeare adaptation, “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” and Mike Mills’ original story, “C’mon C’mon.”
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” and “Drive My Car” in the adapted-screenplay category and “Belfast,” “A Hero,” “The Hand of God,” “Parallel Mothers” and “Prayers for the Stolen” in original screenplay. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” was not submitted by the WGA deadline and thus was also ineligible.
“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 SCREENPLAY
Being the Ricardos, Written by Aaron Sorkin; Amazon Studios
Don’t Look Up, Screenplay by Adam McKay, Story by Adam McKay & David Sirota; Netflix
The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, Screenplay by Wes Anderson, Story by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola & Hugo Guinness & Jason Schwartzman; Searchlight Pictures
King Richard, Written by Zach Baylin; Warner Bros. Pictures
Licorice Pizza, Written by Paul Thomas Anderson; United Artists
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
CODA, Screenplay by Siân Heder, Based on the Original Motion Picture La Famille Belier Directed by Eric Lartigau, Written by Victoria Bedos, Stanislas Carree de Malberg, Eric Lartigau and Thomas Bidegain; Apple
Dune, Screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth, Based on the novel Dune Written by Frank Herbert; Warner Bros. Pictures
Nightmare Alley, Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Kim Morgan, Based on the Novel by William Lindsay Gresham; Searchlight Pictures
tick…tick…BOOM!, Screenplay by Steven Levenson, Based on the play by Jonathan Larson; Netflix
West Side Story, Screenplay by Tony Kushner, Based on the Stage Play, Book by Arthur Laurents, Music by Leonard Bernstein, Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Play Conceived, Directed and Choreographed by Jerome Robbins; 20th Century Studios
DOCUMENTARY SCREENPLAY
Being Cousteau, Written by Mark Monroe & Pax Wasserman; National Geographic
Exposing Muybridge, Written by Marc Shaffer; Inside Out Media
Like a Rolling Stone: The Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres, Written by Suzanne Joe Kai; StudioLA.TV
