Precursor: 27th Producers Guild Nominations (2015)

Looking at Film from Every Angle

Precursor: 27th Producers Guild Nominations (2015)

Posted

January 5, 2016

Wesley Lovell

Tags:

There’s about to be an explosion on the internet based on three major exclusions from this year’s PGA nominations. This will be led by Star Wars: The Force Awakens fans who will discover that their film is NOT among the PGA Best Picture nominees even though everyone felt fairly certain it would be here. That pretty much torpedoes the film’s chances at a Best Picture nomination, not that it had much of a shot anyway.

The second significant absence is Todd Haynes’ Carol, a Sirkian melodrama starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as lovers. The gay community will be understandably upset over this slight considering they have zero representation on the PGA list in spite of tons of precursors suggesting it was a major player.

Room‘s failure to score a nomination will reverberate less radically, but there will be some grousing about that. Room was thought to be the indie drama most likely to make the cut this year among a large slate of studio-backed efforts. Instead of Room, Ex Machina makes a surprise appearance, which could bolster its chances for an Oscar nomination.

Straight Outta Compton makes its second major appearance after its SAG ensemble nomination, which means it may be a more significant player than anyone thought. It still faces an uphill battle, though. Bridge of Spies‘ flagging support got a nice jolt with this list, giving it a better opportunity to leverage the mention against a Best Picture nomination.

On the animation front, the shocking absence here is Shaun the Sheep Movie being left off in favor of Minions. However, when you think about it, the PGA is all about major successes, both critically and, especially, financially. Minions was a huge box office performer whereas Shaun the Sheep Movie barely made a blip. That makes it an unfortunate, but not truly surprising omission.