Writers Guild Goes for Laughs, Ignores ‘Mississippi Burning’

Last year’s crop of popular, made-for-adult comedies dominated the Writers Guild of America’s nominations for 1988’s best original screenplay. But the guild’s other nominee list--for screenplay adaptations--honored some films further outside the mainstream.

The original screenplay list included the writers of “Big,” “Bull Durham,” “A Fish Called Wanda” and “Working Girl.” The lone dramatic screenplay nominated was for “Rain Man.”

The biggest surprise, by omission, was Chris Gerolmo’s original screenplay for “Mississippi Burning.” The shut-out of “Mississippi Burning” could suggest that the controversy surrounding the film’s portrayal of white FBI agents as heroes and activist blacks as secondary players during the civil rights-era incident it depicts may be taking a toll on its hopes in the Academy Award race.

In the adapted screenplay category, the nominees included the script for the year’s box office champion, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” and the one for “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” which opened a year ago to very little business. The writers also nominated the scripts for “Gorillas in the Mist,” “Accidental Tourist” and “Dangerous Liaisons.”

Nominees for best screenplay written directly for the screen: “Big,” by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg; “Bull Durham,” by Ron Shelton; “A Fish Called Wanda,” by John Cleese, who collaborated with director Charles Crichton; “Rain Man,” by Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow; and “Working Girl,” by Kevin Wade.

Best screenplay adapted from another medium: “Dangerous Liaisons,” by Christopher Hampton; “The Accidental Tourist,” by Frank Galati and Lawrence Kasdan; “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” by Jean-Claude Carriere and Philip Kaufman; “Gorillas in the Mist,” by Anna Hamilton Phelan, who collaborated on the story with Tab Murphy; and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” by Jeffrey Price and Peter Seaman.

The 10,000-member Writers Guild will announce its winners at a ceremony March 20.