Producers Guild of America (PGA) awards: ‘The Whale’ surprises, ‘The Woman King,’ ‘Women Talking’ miss

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The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced their nominees for the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures and some very interesting additions (and omissions) came with it on none other than the first day of Oscar nomination voting.

While expected blockbuster titles like Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Top Gun: Maverick and critics hit The Banshees of Inisherin showed up, two films on the opposite ends of the box office spectrum did too: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Whale. For BP:WF, the film has been a financial success, earning nearly $800M at the worldwide box office, including $450M domestically in the U.S. But it’s still quite a bit less than the $1.3B/$700M the first film took in, which also earned a PGA nomination (on its way to a Best Picture Oscar nod.

For The Whale, the film has quietly been doing incredible numbers for its $3M budget and with material that has been both difficult and controversial. Brendan Fraser, on a major career comeback, portrays a 600-lb recluse trying to reconnect with his daughter one last time. The film has earned $8.5M since its December release in less than 600 theaters.

Big misses today? Women. Gina Prince-Bythwood’s The Woman King, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun and Maria Schrader’s She Said all missed the PGA cut, marking no narrative feature nominees directed by women making it in.

Non-English and international features like Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Variance Films’ RRR and NEON’s Triangle of Sadness also failed to land a spot.

The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Fabelmans are the only films to land BAFTA longlist, Critics Choice, Golden Globe, PGA and SAG.

Last year, PGA and Oscar went 9/10 for Best Picture will PGA choice tick, tick…BOOM! missing out to Nightmare Alley. The Producers Guild of America moved to 10 nominee slots in 2009 to coincide with Oscar’s Best Picture expansion but the Academy only used the straight 10 for two years, opting for the next 10 to have a sliding scale that resulted in 8 or 9 nominees. They are back to 10, beginning last year.

Television nominees for drama included Andor, Better Call Saul, Ozark, Severance and The White Lotus with a big miss for The Crown. Comedy series nominees are Abbot Elementary, Barry, The Bear, Hacks and Only Murders in the Building. For limited series we have Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, The Dropout, Inventing Anna, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Pam & Tommy.

Nominations were already revealed in documentary and included All That Breathes, Descendent, Fire of Love, Navalny, Nothing Compares, Retrograde and The Territory, as well as sports and children’s programming.

Tom Cruise is set to receive the David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures. Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy will receive the Milestone Award, the film Till will receive The Stanley Kramer Award and Mindy Kaling will receive the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television.

The 25th PGA Awards will be held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California on February 25, 2023.

The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures nominees are:

• AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (20th Century Studios)
• THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (Searchlight Pictures)
• BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (Walt Disney/Marvel Studios)
• ELVIS EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (A24)
• THE FABELMANS (Universal Pictures)
• GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (Netflix)
• TÁR (Focus Features)
• TOP GUN: MAVERICK (Paramount Pictures)
• THE WHALE (A24)

Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures

• “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” (Netflix)
• “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” (A24)
• “Minions: The Rise of Gru” (Universal Pictures/Illumination)
• “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (DreamWorks Animation)
• “Turning Red” (Pixar)

Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Drama

• “Andor” (Disney+)
• “Better Call Saul” (AMC)
• “Ozark” (Netflix)
• “Severance” (Apple TV+)
• “The White Lotus” (HBO)

Danny Thomas Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Comedy

• “Abbott Elementary” (ABC)
• “Barry” (HBO)
• “The Bear” (FX)
• “Hacks” (HBO Max)
• “Only Murders in the Building” (Hulu)

David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited or Anthology Series Television

• “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” (Netflix)
• “The Dropout” (Hulu)
• “Inventing Anna” (Netflix)
• “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (Disney+)
• “Pam & Tommy” (Hulu)

Outstanding Producer of Televised or Streamed Motion Pictures

• “Fire Island” (Hulu)
• “Hocus Pocus 2” (Disney+)
• “Pinocchio” (Disney+)
• “Prey” (Hulu)
• “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” (The Roku Channel)

Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction Television

• “30 for 30” (ESPN)
• “60 Minutes” (CBS)
• “George Carlin’s American Dream” (HBO)
• “Lucy and Desi” (Amazon Prime Video)
• “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy” (CNN)

Outstanding Producer of Live Entertainment, Variety, Sketch, Standup & Talk Television

• “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” (Comedy Central)
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (ABC)
• “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” (HBO)
• “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (CBS)
• “Saturday Night Live” (NBC)

Outstanding Producer of Game & Competition Television

• “The Amazing Race” (CBS)
• “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls” (Amazon Prime Video)
• “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” (VH1)
• “Top Chef” (Bravo)
• “The Voice” (NBC)