“The Hurt Locker” scored the top film award from the Producers Guild of America, building new momentum for the Iraq war drama in the expanded Oscar race for best picture. The film about a risk-taking bomb disposal technician beat out such celebrated nominees as “Avatar,” ”Inglourious Basterds” and “Up in the Air.”
“The Hurt Locker,” starring Jeremy Renner and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, also bested the films “Star Trek,” ”District 9,” ”An Education,” ”Invictus,” ”Up” and “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire” at Sunday’s Producers Guild Awards at the Hollywood Palladium, the latest kudofest in the run-up to the Academy Awards in March.
Assuming “The Hurt Locker” earns an Oscar best-picture nomination Feb. 2, it will have just as much competition as it did at the PGAs, which followed Oscar organizers lead and doubled the best-picture category to 10 nominees, aiming to bring a broader range of movies into the fold, which means a blockbuster could take the top category.
In other PGA film categories, “Up” won for animated feature and “The Cove” was lauded for documentary. The Harlem drama “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire” was honored with the Stanley Kramer Award, a prize named after the late director that recognizes work which explores and addresses provocative social issues.
Four television shows were repeat winners from last year: AMC’s “Madmen” for drama TV; NBC’s “30 Rock” for comedy TV; Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” for live entertainment and competition TV; and CBS’ “60 Minutes” for nonfiction TV. The HBO TV film “Grey Gardens” snagged the prize in the long-form TV category.
Career achievement awards were bestowed on Sony Pictures chairman Michael Lynton and co-chairman Amy Pascal; Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios chief creative officer John Lasseter; and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Dollhouse” mastermind Joss Whedon.
DGA Spot Nominees: Lance Acord, Kim Gehrig, Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim, Andreas Nilsson, Ivan Zacharias
This year’s field of nominees for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award recognizing Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials consists of a filmmaker who’s won the honor each of the last two years, another past winner, a five-time nominee, a helmer who’s just picked up his second career nod, and a duo garnering their very first Guild nomination. The latter is the directorial team of Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim of production house PRETTYBIRD. The director now going for her third consecutive DGA Award win is Kim Gehrig of Somesuch. The other past winner is Andreas Nilsson of Biscuit Filmworks. Nilsson won the honor in 2016 and now has three career nominations. Lance Acord of Park Pictures just earned his fifth career DGA Award nomination in the commercials category--his four prior nods coming in 2004, 2012, 2013 and 2017. And scoring his second career DGA nod is Ivan Zacharias of SMUGGLER who was previously nominated in 2023. The work Gehrig earned her third straight nomination on the strength of three entries: SiriusXM’s “A Life in Sound” for agency Uncommon; Nike’s “Am I A Bad Person?” for Wieden+Kennedy, and the Apple client-direct spot titled “Find Your Friends.” Nilsson’s latest nomination came for Hennessy’s “Board Game” out of Wieden+Kennedy London; Andrex’s “First Office Poo” for FCB London; the client-direct Apple spot “One More”; and Virgin Media’s “Whizzer” for VCCP London. Acord’s fifth career nod is for Volkswagen’s “An American Love Story” out of agency Johannes Leonardo. Zacharias’ second career nomination is for Apple’s “Flock” out of TBWAMedia Arts Lab. And the duo of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim nabbed their first... Read More