The Producers Guild of America (PGA) awards nominations have been announced and it’s a list of all the usual suspects. La La Land has been nominated along with Manchester By The Sea and Moonlight, and they’re probably the three biggest contenders for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Those films have also been joined by such acclaimed dramas as Arrival, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, Lion and… yup, Deadpool. The smart alecky superhero comedy in which Ryan Reynolds gets pegged to the tune of “Calendar Girl.”
And while we couldn’t be happier to see an excellent superhero movie get some well-deserved attention from the film industry’s most respectable institutions, we can’t help but wonder whether this (and Deadpool‘s recent WGA Awards nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay) really means – as some might be led to believe – that Deadpool is on its way to some serious Oscar nominations.
Is Deadpool really a Best Picture contender? Certainly its odds of being nominated are higher than anyone could have predicted a year ago. The Producers Guild is usually more-or-less in synch with the Academy’s tastes, although there have been some notable, populist discrepancies. Star Trek was nominated for a PGA Award back in 2010 and didn’t break into the top Oscar categories, and Skyfall received another outlier nomination in 2013. And just last year there were several notable PGA-nominated films that didn’t earn Oscar nominations for Best Picture, including Ex Machina, Sicario and Straight Outta Compton.
20th Century Fox
Also: Crave Calls ‘Deadpool’ One of the Best Movies of 2016
But it’s worth noting that the Oscars haven’t been nearly as stuffy in recent years as they are typically given credit for. Recent nominees for Best Picture include Mad Max: Fury Road (a post-apocalyptic thriller), Life of Pi (a CGI-loaded film about being trapped in a life raft with a man-eating tiger), and Gravity and The Martian (not one, but two disaster movies set in outer space), and all of those films were considered serious contenders for the top prize. Most of them walked away with quite a few statues, in fact.
It’s certainly been a surprising show of support for Deadpool either way. It’s clear that filmmakers of all varieties appreciate what a breath of fresh air Tim Miller’s movie was, and that they are eager to honor its accomplishments. Good job, Deadpool! We hope you go the distance, if only because your self-aware Oscar campaign would be HILARIOUS.
Here are the complete list of PGA Awards nominations (via Coming Soon). The awards will be given out on January 28, 2016.
The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures:
Arrival
Producers: Dan Levine, Shawn Levy, Aaron Ryder, David Linde
Deadpool
Producers: Simon Kinberg, Ryan Reynolds, Lauren Shuler Donner
Fences
Producers: Scott Rudin, Denzel Washington, Todd Black
Hacksaw Ridge
Producers: Bill Mechanic, David Permut
Hell or High Water
Producers: Carla Hacken, Julie Yorn
Hidden Figures
Producers: Donna Gigliotti, Peter Chernin & Jenno Topping, Pharrell Williams, Theodore Melfi
La La Land
Producers: Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz, Marc Platt
Lion
Producers: Emile Sherman & Iain Canning, Angie Fielder
Manchester By the Sea
Producers: Matt Damon, Kimberly Steward, Chris Moore, Lauren Beck, Kevin Walsh
Moonlight
Producers: Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner & Jeremy Kleiner
The Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures:
Finding Dory
Producer: Lindsey Collins
Kubo and the Two Strings
Producers: Arianne Sutner, Travis Knight
Moana
Producer: Osnat Shurer
The Secret Life of Pets
Producers: Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy
Zootopia
Producer: Clark Spencer
The Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures:
Dancer
Producer: Gabrielle Tana
The Eagle Huntress
Producers: Stacey Reiss, Otto Bell
Life, Animated
Producers: Julie Goldman, Roger Ross Williams
O.J.: Made in America
Producers: Ezra Edelman, Caroline Waterlow
Tower
Producers: Keith Maitland, Susan Thomson, Megan Gilbride
Top Photo: 20th Century Fox
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved, Rapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
