The production team behind the criticall lauded Birdman (a team that includes Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, and James W. Skotchdopole) were awarded the highest honr at the PGA award yesterday, officially named The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures. The PGA awards are always significant in Hollywood, as they are not only one of the ost prestigious, but they frequently predict the eventual winners of the Academy Awards in a few more weeks’ time. To date, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood has been the critical frontrunner, but Birdman now seems to be the favorite, at least amongst producers. This is a declarative relief from last year, when the two frontrunners, Gravity and 12 Years a Slave, tied for the award. 12 Years a Slave ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Check Out: The PGA Awards Just Made Everything Worse
The Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures went to Dan Lin was for The LEGO Movie, a film that was critically lauded and immensely successful, but is not nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards. Same for Garrett Basch, Steve James, and Zak Piper, the team behind Life Itself, the winner of The Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures. The excellent and critically acclaimed (of course) Roger Ebert doc is not nominated for an Academy Award.
We’ll have to wait until February 22nd to see if the PGA Awards predict the Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards.
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
