Brokeback, Crash Take Writers Awards

By Rich Drees

     February 6, 2006- The dramas Crash and Brokeback Mountain took the Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay awards Saturday night at the 58^th annual Writers Guild Awards in parallel ceremonies held in Los Angeles and New York City.

     Last week, the Writers Guild awarded their prize for Best Documentary Screenplay to Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room. You can read our coverage here.

     Crash, which details the intersecting lives of several Los Angelinos over a 36-hour period, was written by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco. The script beat out the boxing drama Cinderella Man, the comedy The 40 Year Old Virgin, and the dramas Good Night, And Good Luck and The Squid And The Whale for the top prize.

     Brokeback Mountain was adapted by Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana from a short story by E. Annie Proulx. Brokeback’s screenplay was in competition with the scripts for Capote, The Constant Gardner, A History Of Violence and Syriana.

     The Writers Guild Awards are often considered strong indicators as to which pictures will win their corresponding Academy Award category. Since 1990, the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay has gone to the Writers Guild Award winner 59% of the time while 69% of the Writers Guild Adapted Screenplay winners have gone on to win an Academy Award.

     The guild also presented special awards to Lawrence Kasdan (the Screen Laurel Award), George Clooney & Grant Heslov (the Paul Selvin Award), Frank Pierson (the Morgan Cox Award), James L. Brooks (the first Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence) and Marshall Brickman (the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Writing).