Best Original Screenplay, The Hurt Locker
Best Adapted Screenplay, Up in the Air
Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner's win for Up in the Air, about an expert corporate-downsizer played by George Clooney, is all but assured. Reitman and Turner's screenplay has been the most honored by US film critics and it has won the Writers Guild Award.
Mark Boal's The Hurt Locker screenplay is somewhat more problematic in that the Iraq War drama has been chiefly seen as a director's movie, which explains why filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow has won most awards out there in that category. It's true that The Hurt Locker won the WGA Award in the Best Original Screenplay category, but Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds screenplay — The Hurt Locker's strongest competitor — was ineligible for the award (Tarantino isn't a WGA member).
Yet, since the Academy as a whole will be voting for the winners — and The Hurt Locker is the favorite to win Best Picture — we believe that Boal's screenplay will be recognized along with The Hurt Locker's direction, editing, cinematography, and sound mixing.
The other contenders are:
Best Original Screenplay: The Messenger, Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman; A Serious Man, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen; Up, screenplay by Bob Peterson and Pete Docter, story by Docter, Peterson, and Tom McCarthy.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Precious, Geoffrey Fletcher; In the Loop, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche; District 9, Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell; and An Education, Nick Hornby.
Photos: George Clooney in Up in the Air (Dale Robinette / Paramount); Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker (Jonathan Olley / Summit Entertainment)