In the original screenplay category Diablo Cody took the main prize for “Juno,” an award you would only have bet against if you were a complete fool and enjoy losing money. In the adapted screenplay category, Joel and Ethan Coen won for their very-faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country For Old Men.”
Competition for original screenplay included scripts for “Michael Clayton,” “The Savages,” “Knocked Up” and “Lars and the Real Girl.” The Coens bested adapted screenplay for “There Will Be Blood,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” “Into the Wild,” and “Zodiac.”
Alex Gibney won the WGA’s documentary screenplay award for “Taxi To The Dark Side,” which is nominated for best documentary at the Oscars and beat out Michael Moore’s screenplay for “Sicko.” It was nice to see “The Wire” get its due too. The Baltimore-based police drama won for Best Dramatic Series in the television category.
As the L.A. Times points out, winning the WGA’s top prize “doesn’t necessarily translate into Oscar gold,” but the winners in both these separate categories over the last two years — “The Departed,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “Crash” — all won themselves an Oscar.