Movies’ Portents of Things to Come

Everybody’s a brilliant Oscar forecaster after the awards by the guilds--writers, directors, actors, producers--are bestowed. So even though Roberto Benigni and Kevin Spacey failed to win any critics’ trophies or a Golden Globe for “Life Is Beautiful” or “American Beauty,” respectively, a few years ago, they were good bets at the Academy Awards once they reaped Screen Actors Guild awards. After all, in the seven years since the guild trophy was introduced, no SAG best actor champ has failed to strike Oscar gold next.

The awards bestowed by the actors’, writers’, directors’ and producers’ guilds, all of which will be doled out during the next 10 days, are considered mini-Oscars, in part because, like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honor, they are peer-group prizes but also because “they’re the best tea leaves we have when trying to predict who’ll win the big Academy Awards,” Entertainment Weekly assistant managing editor Mark Harris says.

Eleven of SAG’s 14 best actor and actress champs have won Oscars for the same roles. The forecast rate drops sharply in the supporting actor races, but, Harris adds, “those are the categories where Oscar voters love to shock us.”

Considering the overall similarities between the winners chosen by all four guilds and the Oscars, how much can be credited to a bump that guild champs receive after winning--and how much is due to similarities in the makeup of the two voting groups?

There are drastic differences in the size of each electorate. The Directors Guild of America, for example, has 12,000 members, many of whom work in TV, while there are 360 film directors who choose Oscar nominees. (All 5,700 academy voting members select the winners.) The Screen Actors Guild sends ballots to all of its 97,000 members (the guild will not reveal how many are returned); there are 1,300 people in the academy’s actors’ branch. The Writers Guild of America has 11,000 members; the academy has 400 writers. The Producers Guild of America has 1,500 members who work in film and TV; the academy has 450 film producers.

There may be big differences in the numbers of people who pick each award, but “they think the same way,” Premiere magazine editor in chief Peter Herbst says. “In many cases they’re the same people who belong to both organizations. I believe that’s the key reason we see so much similarity between the awards. In general, I think Oscar voters make up their minds before the guilds pick their winners.”

Throughout the 53-year history of the DGA, Oscar voters have rubber-stamped all but five guild champs. The Producers Guild has correctly predicted the best picture Oscar 10 times in the past 13 years. The Writers Guild of America and the Academy Awards have had parallel categories only for the past 17 years, but since then, 20 of the 34 script Oscars have been won by WGA champs.

Oscar voters are just now receiving their ballots, which are due March 19. In the meantime there will be galas to bestow the WGA awards on Saturday, PGA awards Sunday, DGA awards March 9 and SAG awards March 10. How will those winners affect the Academy Awards on March 24?

“If ‘A Beautiful Mind’ wins the Producers Guild Award, you don’t have to worry about what’s going to win best picture at the Oscars,” Herbst says. “That’ll mean that the race is probably decided, since the guild usually goes for big blockbusters like ‘Lord of the Rings.’” The PGA demonstrated a sizable affinity for big films this year when it opted to nominate box-office giants “Shrek” and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” over two small, art-house best picture contenders at the Oscars: “In the Bedroom” and “Gosford Park.” The Oscars and PGA agree on “A Beautiful Mind,” “Lord of the Rings” and “Moulin Rouge.”

The Directors Guild and Oscars also only agree on three out of five contenders, but one of the DGA snubs, that of Robert Altman for “Gosford Park,” could be significant. No one has ever won the best director Oscar without scoring a corresponding guild nomination.

“I wonder if this is going to be the year it finally happens,” Harris says, “because I think Robert Altman really has a serious shot.”

Meanwhile, without Altman competing at the DGA, all eyes are focused on how Ron Howard fares among voters who proclaimed him a winner in 1996 for “Apollo 13” despite the fact that he wasn’t nominated at the Oscars. Howard was also snubbed by the academy after receiving a DGA nomination for “Cocoon” in 1986.

“If Ron Howard loses at DGA, it’ll be a major signal that the guild awards send this year,” film historian Peter Hammond says. “It’ll not only tell us that Howard is in trouble among his peers, but it’ll reveal that there’s probably less support for ‘A Beautiful Mind’ than many people think.”

“A Beautiful Mind” star Russell Crowe is considered one of the front-runners for the best actor Oscar, but his actual level of peer support may be witnessed at the SAG awards. “There may be some voters who are reluctant to give Crowe back-to-back Oscars, but how many?” Hammond asks. “Denzel Washington has been gaining momentum lately, while this year’s special Oscar salute to Sidney Poitier reminds voters that Poitier is the only African American who’s ever won a lead acting award. SAG could tell us how people in the industry feel about that.”

Last year’s guild and academy honors proved to be out of sync when “Traffic’s” Benicio del Toro won SAG best actor and Oscar best supporting actor. This year “A Beautiful Mind’s” Jennifer Connelly faces the same category split--a SAG best actress nominee, an Oscar supporting actress nominee. With the guilds, it’s up to the studios to decide which category their acting nominees are submitted for, while at the Oscars it’s up to the voters.

“Gosford Park” and “A Beautiful Mind” are major contenders at the Writers Guild, but they’re not competing against rivals that may prove formidable foes later at the Oscars--”Memento” and “In the Bedroom,” which were shut out of the WGA honors because their production companies are not guild signatories.

“Some Oscar voters may want to rally behind ‘Memento’ and ‘In the Bedroom’ because of the guild snub,” Harris suggests.

That’s apparently what occurred in 1996 when “The Usual Suspects” won the Oscar after being shut out of the WGA because of the signatory glitch. Like “Memento,” it was not a best picture nominee, but it ambushed best picture winner “Braveheart,” which won the Writers Guild Award.

“Generally, the Writers Guild predicts one of the two screenplay Oscars correctly,” Hammond says. Oscar voters endorsed one of the two WGA winners seven times in the past 10 years. They agreed on both winners the other three times. Notes Hammond: “If Oscar voters are going to stray this year, it’ll probably be in that category for original scripts.”