Producers Guild Nominations

Ten films were chosen yesterday by the Producers Guild Awards which is somewhat predictive of what the Academy would do, but not always. Really it's all about seeing what films are getting those consensus votes at this time of year.

Producer of the Year Award in Films

• American Sniper
• Birdman
• Boyhood
• Gone Girl
• Foxcatcher
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• The Imitation Game
• Nightcrawler
• The Theory of Everything
• Whiplash

The big miss here is Selma, the only film nominated for a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award to not get cited here. Apparently the studio didn't send out screeners to the guild, but they did send screeners out to the Academy so in terms of Oscars they might still be good, but it's still a big snub. Another late-year release American Sniper did get screeners out to the guild and reaped the benefits and now looking even likelier to crash the Oscar party so to speak. The other misses include Unbroken and Into the Woods though at least their recent favorable box office results should ameliorate any sting. In fact, for a guild that awards producers (i.e. the money people) it's quite interesting to see them not highlight any of the top 13 live-action box office earners this year including quality blockbuster fare like Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Interstellar.

Producer of the Year Award in Animated Films

• Big Hero 6
• The Book of Life
• The Boxtrolls
• How to Train Your Dragon 2
• The Lego Movie

Meanwhile in animation they did honor the top three highest-grossing films this year with the top earner The Lego Movie as the heavy favorite this Pixar-less year. This line-up looks like the eventual Oscar shortlist give or take a non-English animated film like The Tale of Princess Kaguya, but with this exact same line-up showing up at the Golden Globes and the BFCA, it's hard to bet on that possibility.