Precursor: 70th Writers Guild Nominations (2017)

Here are your Writers Guild of America nominations. First, let’s look at the films that weren’t included that are still Oscar contenders, then we’ll look to see which of them were excluded from the eligibility list for specified reasons.

Titles missing from the list: Darkest Hour, Downsizing, The Florida Project, Phantom Thread, The Post, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri from Original Screenplay; and Wonder, Blade Runner 2049, Wonder Woman, and Wonderstruck from Adapted Screenplay.

The Writers Guild has unique rules to its body limiting consideration for nomination to films made under a WGA contract. Thus, some independent studios are regularly excluded while animation is always excluded as they aren’t guild signatories. So, of Original Screenplay nominees that missed the list, Darkest Hour and Three Billboards are the only two known exclusions. This is especially bad for Best Picture contenders Florida Project, Phantom Thread, and The Post. Any of them could knock off Big Sick or I, Tonya, but their Oscar trajectories were impeded by the exclusion.

On the Adapted side, none of the listed titles were excluded, which could utterly destroy their chances at Oscar consideration. Even Wonder Woman, which is a classic populist choice for the WGA didn’t manage to make the list, though Logan got in, which might explain why Wonder Woman didn’t.

These citatons put Big Sick, I, Tonya, and Logan back into the thick of Oscar contention even if their chances, listed from most to least likely, still aren’t the greatestest.