Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (Jonathan Olley / Summit Entertainment)
Their film's Producers Guild win was great news for the Hurt Locker team. Just yesterday at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Jeremy Renner lost the best actor award to Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart — admittedly, no big surprise — but much more damning, the film's cast lost SAG's ensemble award to Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.
In fact, things began looking more than a little grim for The Hurt Locker after its double loss to Avatar at the Golden Globes last week. Although it's true that Hollywood Foreign Press Association voters and Academy Award voters are two very distinct groups, all the hoopla surrounding Avatar's surprise wins — best picture (drama), best director for James Cameron — surely caught the attention of Academy members.
The Hurt Locker's PGA victory is particularly surprising because the producers tend to like bigger and/or more popular fare, e.g., Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' Little Miss Sunshine, Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. When they go for "art" films, they pick those that found lots of critical favor and solid box-office returns as well, e.g., Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, Brokeback Mountain.
The Hurt Locker earned about $12 million at the domestic box office, or just a million or so more than its reported production costs.
Next Saturday, the Directors Guild will select its winners. The Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow is the clear favorite unless the DGA decides to give us another awards season upset.
At The Wrap, Steve Pond wonders if the PGA's preferential system worked against Avatar.