USC Scripter

[Mister Tee]

Women Talking pulls it out. Now it has to sweat through Sunday night's WGA. In neither case was it competing with its chief Oscar competition -- All Quiet -- but a loss in either spot would still hurt a fragile candidacy.

[Okri]

According to Kris Tapley, a member of the USC Scripter committee, Paramount has withdrew Top Gun: Maverick from consideration, leaving only four nominees this year.

Lol.

[anonymous1980]

According to Kris Tapley, a member of the USC Scripter committee, Paramount has withdrew Top Gun: Maverick from consideration, leaving only four nominees this year.

[dws1982]

Well it's fine to say the new Top Gun is based on the characters or story from 1986 screenplay for Top Gun. This is how the film itself handles the writing credit, crediting Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. But to say this, a 2022 film, is based on the same article by Ehud Yonay that inspired the original film is just silly. Why not just follow the credits as they appear in the film? (Because the publicists and awards campaign people, who are in charge of handling paperwork for these things, know how the game is played and know they wouldn't have gotten this nomination if they had. The Living campaign is just as guilty.)

[OscarGuy]

The plot to Top Gun: Maverick isn't just based on the characters. The events of that film specifically influence the actions of three characters for sure and they impact others. To say it's just based on a couple of characters diminishes the significance of the plot as a sequel to the original.

[dws1982]

This group at one point, only nominated adaptations of specific printed source material: books, short stories, etc. But then in 2008, something changed, and they nominated Iron Man (followed, a decade later, by Black Panther, Logan and Wonder Woman), based on "comics", but not on specific ones, just on characters from them, and the next year nominated District 9 which was adapted from a short film. I feel like they do mostly try to stick to their "based on something printed" roots, which is why Glass Onion is out this year, and why Living is listed as based on The Death of Ivan Ilyich, when it's a remake of Ikiru, which isn't really even an adaptation of Ilyich but is at best inspired by it, and why Top Gun: Maverick cites the article that inspired the original Top Gun, when it's a completely new story and only includes a few characters from the original.

Their TV category is mostly straightforward adaptations, except that The Crown is now adapted from Morgan's play The Audience.

[OscarGuy]

I believe it's English-language scripts only. Their nominating committee reads all of the screenplays and the source material and unless they all read the same languages, I doubt they'd want something that only one member of the committee could read.

[Big Magilla]

That's a good question. I couldn't find anything on their website or their Wikipedia entry that lists heir criteria. The source material is often non-U.S. based as obviously Pinocchio and Living are, but the scripts for the films nominated have always been in English in productions both for film and more recently television that have been produced and/or distributed by U.S. companies.

[Sabin]

Top Gun: Maverick. I'm just sayin'.

Do they accept international entries like All Quiet on the Western Front? Most interesting exclusions are Glass Onion and The Whale.

[anonymous1980]

“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” (Netflix) — Guillermo del Toro, Patrick McHale, and Matthew Robbins (based on the fairy tale “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi)

“Living” (Sony Pictures Classics) — Kazuo Ishiguro (based on the novella “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Leo Tolstoy)

“She Said” (Universal Pictures) — Rebecca Lenkiewicz (based on the nonfiction book, “She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement” by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey)

“Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount Pictures) — Peter Craig, Ehren Kruger, Justin Marks, Christopher McQuarrie, and Eric Warren (based on characters from the 1983 “California” magazine article “Top Guns” by Ehud Yonay)

“Women Talking” (MGM/United Artists Releasing) — Sarah Polley, Miriam Toews (based on the novel “Women Talking” by Miriam Toews)