The striking writers have a tentative deal. The Coen brothers have another award.
Well, at least half of that news was actually new.
On the same day the Writers Guild of America announced it had an agreement with producers, potentially ending three months of keyboard stoppage, the union on Saturday bestowed its top movie honors to Joel and Ethan Coens' No Country for Old Men and the indie hit Juno.
No Country won for Adapted Screenplay; Juno, by stripper memoirist Diablo Cody, for Original Screenplay.
In the TV categories, HBO's The Wire claimed the Dramatic Series title. NBC's 30 Rock (Comedy Series), Comedy Central's The Colbert Report (Comedy/Variety Series), and AMC's Mad Men (New Series) were among the other big winners.
For the Coens and their thriller, the win makes it a clean sweep of the alphabet awards, which include the PGAs (Best Film), the DGAs (Best Director), and the SAGs (Best Ensemble).
Unlike the other guild awards, the 2008 WGA Awards was more announcement than show. The East Coast wing of the union held an "informal reception" for nominees and winners in New York; the West Coast wing scrapped its annual ceremony in Los Angeles all together.
The strike was to blame for the low- and no-key affairs. But unlike the decimated Golden Globes, the WGA wasn't worried that its members would picket their own celebration; it decided it just wasn't the right time to party. The WGA West says it'll host a show once the strike is completely and officially over.
With Saturday's contract developments, the Oscars, meanwhile, looks to be on solid footing for its show.
Now just two weeks away, the Feb. 24 Academy Awards will reveal if No Country can keep beating the daylights out of Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, which was one of the also-rans at the WGAs. At the Oscars, the films will vie for eight awards each, going head to head in several categories, including Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay.
In claiming its WGA, Cody's Juno beat three of its four Oscar night screenplay competitors: Lars and the Real Girl; Michael Clayton; and, The Savages. Overall, the teen-pregnancy comedy is up for four Academy Awards.
Elsewhere, the WGA presented its first-ever award for videogame writing to the scribes behind the headless-detective adventure, "Dead Head Fred."
Here's a rundown of the top 2008 Writers Guild of America Awards winners:
Film
- Original Screenplay: Juno
- Adapted Screenplay: No Country for Old Men
- Documentary: Taxi to the Dark Side
Television:
- Dramatic Series: The Wire
- Comedy Series: 30 Rock
- Comedy/Variety Series: The Colbert Report
- New Series: Mad Men
- Episodic Drama (honoring a single episode): "The Second Coming," The Sopranos
- Episodic Comedy (honoring a single episode): "The Job," The Office
- Animation (honoring a single episode): "Kill Gil: Volumes 1 & 2," The Simpsons
- Long Form, Original: Pandemic
- Long Form, Adaptation: The Company: A Story of the CIA
- Daytime Serial: The Young & the Restless