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“Arrival,” “Deadpool,” “Fences,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” “Hell or High Water,” “Hidden Figures,” “La La Land,” “Lion,” “Manchester by the Sea,” and “Moonlight” have been nominated for the Producers Guild of America‘s top movie award.
Awards contenders “Silence,” “Jackie,” “Sully,” “Loving,” “Captain Fantastic,” “Nocturnal Animals,” “20th Century Women,” and “Florence Foster Jenkins” were overlooked by voters for the PGA’s Darryl F. Zanuck Award. The winner will be announced on Jan. 28 at the guild’s 28th annual awards show at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
“Finding Dory,” “Kubo and the Two Strings,” “Moana,” “The Secret Life of Pets,” and “Zootopia” received nominations on Tuesday for the PGA’s top animated feature.
“La La Land” has emerged as a front-runner in the season, with seven wins, setting a record on Sunday for the most Golden Globes nabbed by a film –including best picture — musical or comedy — then led the BAFTA nominations on Tuesday morning with 11. “Moonlight” won the Golden Globe for best drama.
“Deadpool” and “Lion” were the biggest surprises among the nominees — though “Deadpool” gained momentum last week with an adapted screenplay nomination from the Writers Guild of America. The Ryan Reynolds action-comedy is by far the top grosser among the PGA nominees with $783 million worldwide.
Simon Kinberg, who produced “Deadpool” with Reynolds and Lauren Shuler Donner, said in response, “We are beyond thrilled and humbled by this honor. We made this movie with a passion and love that audiences responded to. And now it’s equally incredible to have our peers embracing that same commitment. We really wanted to make something that broke all the rules, and somehow we didn’t get punished for it.”
The PGA’s 7,500 members vote for the winner of the Zanuck trophy. The award has become a strong indicator of Oscar sentiment in recent years, partly because it uses a preferential balloting system that’s similar to that used by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The PGA and AMPAS both expanded their voting for the top film to 10 nominees in 2009. The Academy revised its process in 2011 to nominate between five and 10 films, while the PGA has continued to set 10 contenders.
The PGA also instituted a credits certification program for its “produced by” certification and was able to get the support of all the major Hollywood studios in 2012 as a response to deal with the proliferation of producing credits. To receive it, a producer’s work must be vetted and certified through the PGA’s arbitration process.
The Academy relies on the PGA determinations in its Best Picture nominations but is not bound by them. The PGA spells out the qualifications for those eligible to receive the “produced by” credit for features and executive producer credit for TV. The code attaches specific weight to producer functions — 35% for development, 20% for pre-production, 20% for production, and 25% for post-production and marketing — and includes job descriptions, guidelines, and rules intended to help resolve credit disputes.
For example, Lionsgate lists Gary Gilbert as a producer on “La La Land,” but he’s excluded from PGA nominations. The three certified producers are Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz and Marc Platt. Similarly, Lionsgate lists David Permut, Bill Mechanic, Brian Oliver, William D. Johnson, Bruce Davey, Paul Currie, and Terry Benedict as producers on “Hacksaw Ridge” while only Permut and Mechanic received the PGA certification.
The PGA has matched the Oscar for best picture in 19 of its 27 years, though it diverged last year when the Zanuck award went to “The Big Short” and the Oscar went to “Spotlight.” The two awards matched in the previous eight years with “Birdman,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Argo,” “The Artist,” “The King’s Speech,” “The Hurt Locker,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” and “No Country for Old Men.”
Seven of last year’s 10 PGA nominees were also nominated for best picture, including “The Big Short,” “Bridge of Spies,” “Brooklyn,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “The Martian,” “The Revenant,” and “Spotlight.”
Here are the PGA nominations for the Darryl F. Zanuck Award:
“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
Here are the PGA nominations for the top animated film:
“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
