‘Argo’ Takes Best Picture at Producers Guild Awards – Is Oscar Next?
It was seen as one of the biggest snubs in recent Oscar memory when Ben Affleck did not receive a Best Director nomination for his rescue thriller, Argo. When neither he nor other favorites Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) and Tom Hooper (Les Misérables) made the cut, it seemed to open the door wide for Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln, which leads all films with 12 Academy Award nominations.
But then a funny thing happened on the way to the Oscars. Argo claimed Best Picture and Best Director at both the Broadcast Film Critics Awards and the Golden Globes, and suddenly many pundits began to agree that Argo‘s Best Picture chances might not be as slim as they once seemed.
Now, Argo has won Best Picture at the Producers Guild Awards, which have successfully predicted the Best Picture Oscar winner for the past five years. And though he may not take home the award for his direction, it looks like Affleck – an Oscar winner (with his friend, Matt Damon) for his screenplay for Good Will Hunting – may have a good shot at nabbing one as producer of Argo (a role he shares with Grant Heslov and George Clooney).
Can a film actually win Best Picture at the Oscars without even being nominated for Best Director? There is precedence: 1989‘s Driving Miss Daisy took home the honors despite the lack of a nod for director Bruce Beresford.
Argo is currently the eighth highest-ranked film of 2012 on Flickchart, and second among the Best Picture nominees. It sits behind only Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained, which has climbed its way past The Avengers to the #2 spot for the year.
The 85th Academy Awards ceremony will be held on February 24.