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LOS ANGELES (January 24, 2010) – Today the Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced this year’s winning television and motion picture productions at the 21st Annual PGA Awards ceremony held at the Hollywood Palladium. The Hurt Locker won the Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures:
The Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures
The Hurt Locker – Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, Greg Shapiro
The Producers Guild of America Producer of the Year Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
Up – Jonas Rivera
The Producers Guild of America Producer of the Year Award in Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures
The Cove – Fisher Stevens, Paula DuPré Pesmen
The Danny Thomas Producer of the Year Award in Episodic Television—Comedy
30 Rock - Lorne Michaels, Tina Fey, Marci Klein, David Miner, Robert Carlock, Jeff Richmond, Don Scardino, Jerry Kupfer
The Norman Felton Producer of the Year Award in Episodic Television—Drama
Mad Men – Matthew Weiner, Scott Hornbacher, Lisa Albert, Andre & Maria Jacquemetton
The Producers Guild of America Producer of the Year Award in Non-Fiction Television
60 Minutes – Jeff Fager
The Producers Guild of America Producer of the Year Award in Live Entertainment and Competition Television
The Colbert Report – Stephen T. Colbert, DFA
The David L. Wolper Producer of the Year Award in Long-Form Television
Grey Gardens – Lucy Barzun Donnelly, Rachael Horovitz, Michael Sucsy, David Coatsworth
In addition to the competitive awards, the PGA honored several individuals with tribute awards including Michael Lynton, Chairman & CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment and Amy Pascal, Co-Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, with the 2010 Milestone Award; award-winning television producer Mark Burnett with the 2010 Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television; John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios and Principal Creative Advisor, Walt Disney Imagineering, with the 2010 David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Motion Pictures; and award-winning science-fiction and fantasy storyteller Joss Whedon with the 2010 Vanguard Award. Additionally, the critically-acclaimed film Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, was honored with the 2010 Stanley Kramer Award.
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I’m THRILLED beyond belief that the PGA has chosen NOT to reward the mediocre Avatar, but I really wish they had rewarded Inglorious Basterds. Who would have thought that making it 10 nominations for this and for the Oscars would bring so much more suspense and surprises. Tarantino deserves to win the DGA, Cameron doesn’t need another one and Basterds is sincerely the most interesting and best movie of the year.
Yes. THANK YOU.
First, let’s put everything in perspective. The PGA is a joke. How can any organization so blatantly permit so many ‘producer’ credits on anything? These folks don’t have a grain of decency and they are always fighting about who did what and who should be credited for it.
That being said, I think Inglourious Basterds is the best picture of the year, and Hurt Locker is also fine storytelling. Avatar is not great storytelling, but the technology advances in storytelling are monumental, and I am sad to say, that the box office will influence voters as well.
All of the major awards have gotten the acting categories right on. Let’s hope the Academy doesn’t give in to revenue versus great storytelling.
Hurt Locker winning over Avatar is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Isn’t making money a BIG part of producing a film? The Hurt Locker made $16 million WORLDWIDE, while tomorrow Avatar will become the highest grossing film of all time and will most likely cross the $2 billion mark. It simply makes no sense. Hurt Locker was the lowest grossing film on the entire PGA nomination list. You cannot possibly give an award for failure in that sense. You’re not truly rewarding the best “produced” film of the year and only making a mockery of yourself.
that is the most ridiculous post i’ve ever seen — you are actually equating box office success with whether a movie is good or not? I guess the blair witch project is also one of the best produced movies under your criteria. This is an award about a producing, not a movie of who made the most money — you are thinking of a different awards entirely. Have you seen the hurt locker — it runs circles around Avatar — the best however is Inglorious Basterds.
yeah, maybe you’re right. But how can you explain why the “highest quality” movie only was seen by about (I guess, maybe less than) 2 million people? What a movie is made for? For amusing a very tiny part of audience who “can” identify a movie’s quality like these “professionals”?
You cann’t just say the audience all over world who weren’t attracted by hurtlocker are stupid because they don’t recognize which movie has the better quality. There are other reasons.
In no way does the Hurt Locker run circles around Avatar. THAT is the most ridiculous post.
The PGA Awards are not for highest grossing film but for the film of the highest quality. The award does not measure box office success but artistic excellence. If that were not the case, why not just nominate the ten highest grossing films of the year?
Avatar was robbed. Plain and simple. Let’s put it this way… in 30 years we will still be giving James Cameron accolades for the brilliance that is Avatar and no one will even remember Hurt Locker in 2012. This is just as bad as Citizen Kane not winning. Insane. Absolutely insane. An affirmative action pick at its finest.
Certainly interesting, but all the awards in the world doesn’t change the fact that no one cared to see The Hurt Locker outside of film snob circles. Both were critically acclaimed, so you can’t use that excuse that money doesn’t make a movie good.
The Hurt Locker (worldwide)-16 million
Avatar (worldwide)-1.8 billion
Yeah, I wonder which one will win the Oscar…
I think it’s quite possible NEITHER will. Titanic aside, the academy doesn’t always equate “best picture” with “biggest grossing” of the year.
that would be inglorious. because its the one that can cut through.
It’s a horse race now dingleberry brain– When HURT LOCKER beats AVATAR for Oscar, please post apologies…
“Film Snob Circles”… that’s offensive. “The Hurt Locker” is a great film, period. So is “The White Ribbon.” These films will last long into the future, while imitations of “Avatar” will pile up and obscure the original.
No one will even remember the Hurt Locker within 5 years and we’ll be singing the praises of Avatar just as we continue to applaud Star Wars and ET… I guess John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley beating out Citizen Kane was the right choice as well. GTFOH!
I am glad The Hurt Locker won. Just because it didnt gross as nearly as much as Avatar doesnt mean it didnt deserve to win. It should be about how good the film is not how much the film made. Anyways The Hurt Locker was a much lower budget film then Avatar and wasnt shown in theaters worldwide. I am not a film snob and I saw The Hurt Locker and Avatar and enjoyed both tremendously but believe The Hurt Locker deserved the win.
If Best “produced” picture is determined by gross receipts then there is no need for a vote and btw “Deep Throat” is missing a trophy. Avatar is great film-making technique (the “acting” sucked) but Hurt Locker and Inglorious Basterds are great films.
Great films?
Great films?
Colin: shut the fuck up? The Hurt Locker was made on a VERY small budget and still came out a fantastic film with great techs to boot.
I never said that box office determines the award. I said that part of producing is making a film that is a commercial success. I’m working on a film right now and after hearing the PGA results, I went up to our producer who has been in the business for over 30 years and posed the exact question of what should be the measurements by which we judge what should win said award. He wasn’t saying that Avatar should win, but found it completely absurd that The Hurt Locker did, because it’s only success came from the critics circle. Do critics know ANYTHING about producing? No, they don’t.
And these things aside, you guys are still missing the point that the Guild awards are TECHNICAL awards. While producing, by definition, isn’t as technical as the fields of cinematography or editing, it still is based in the merits of a persons individual technical skills, and producing is a craft. It does not necessarily mean that it’s the best film in terms of quality. That’s what the Oscars Best Picture is, or should be. PART of the skills of being a producer is getting a film to be a commercial success, and in that regard The Hurt Locker was a failure. You can blame it on marketing and money, but that’s bogus. Marketing still has to be approved by producers, and money is no excuse because we’ve seen time after time small films making large returns.
Other aspects of producing are producing a quality film, and Hurt Locker is certainly a quality film. It just should not win a PGA. It’s absurd.
In terms of its genre, The Hurt Locker was a commercial success, not just a success in critics’ circles. But the award (technical or not) is still for producing the best quality film, which does not depend on how the film does in the marketplace–which may or may not be due to factors out of the producers’ hands–but on its innate artistic merit.
I don’t know, Colin, I think you can argue that the “Best Producer” should also take into account the obstacles that a Producer has to deal with, and what they did on Hurt Locker with the budget they had was phenomenal. Avatar had almost unlimited resources and lots of time. I’d argue that, for sheer “big juevos” producing, Hurt Locker takes it by a mile.
marketing does NOT have to be approved by the producer. not unless you’re J Camron or M Bay types. The distributor takes it & does what they want (why do you think there are so many crappy trailers that tell you the WHOLE movie? producers wouldn’t ok that).
I’m confused as to why people think only the critics like THL. Everone I know that has seen it LOVES it and none of them are critics.
think about this so far the people i know or that i’ve heard have seen avatar probably four times. so think about this avatar is probably getting the same audience all the time as in the same people all the time. So i bet you if people only saw avatar once it would have only made half the money it made or less. i dont find anything interesting about blue people making love to each other. Also the movie only built up with suspense towards the end, at the beginning and middle it dragged on. basicly it took almost two hours for the movie to build up with suspense, to me thats not a good movie. If it takes that long for a movie to build up suspense i might as well see a television show. also people went to go see the movie for its advance in technology. think about this at the end of avatar the people were on robots just like in thethird matrix movie, thats the only part were avatar built suspense. If i wanted to see that i might as well have seen the third matrix movie instead. Now, the hurt locker had a bunch of suspense through out the whole movie, the first five minutes movie of the was filled with suspense. If a movie can do that at the beginning and through out the whole movie, it deserves an award just like inglorious basterds. also im a movie person, i love movies, i do acting and im no pro but a movie shouldn’t get an award just because it made a lot of money especially when its the same people that see it over and over again. if that were he case the next new movie that comes out people should see over and over again and it should get an award. also, what i loved about the hurt locker was that it held my attention and had so much more suspense than avatar which james cameron spent millions of dollars to make.
First of all, I think that the hurt locker would be making more money if they would actually re-release it — I honestly did not even hear about this movie until it started winning EVERY critics awards out there — except for a couple that Inglorious Basterds and Up in the Air won.
Making the most money doesnt’ make you the best picture of the year. Cameron’s got an oscar, spread the wealth and I’m glad the PGA did just that.
Embarrassing, this result. Avatar’s chances for an Oscar BP were gravely wounded tonight. Exposes the PGA as elitist and snobs when a boxoffice bomb can steal their top award from a movie that connected with audiences and critics ALIKE.
b not at all they have only picked 13 winners. They are mostly wrong
The greater gross does not neccessarily make the greater picture, and since the Oscars aren’t called The Box Office Awards, it stands to reason that any picture can win.
Hurt Locker actually had a script with characters in it, which probably explains why it won.
I suppose by the money-is-all-important standard that some here choose to embrace, then we should just hand the nobel peace prize to michael bay. he’s really rich, so obviously he’s a better person than mother theresa.
right?
If Avatar had such a suck-ass script, then please explain why it was nominated for a WGA original screenplay award. Surely the voters would’ve gone out of their way to nominate something, ANYTHING else other than Avatar; Twilight: New Moon, even.
So that argument doesn’t pass the smell test, IMO. And what’s even more LMFAO hilarious; somebody actually said Avatar rips off ‘Up’. Really?
Well as far as the WGA nod goes, that’s kind of a joke. The whole field this year at WGA’s are tarnished because many of the films were disqualified for reasons of not being made under a WGA signatory. So take those with a grain of salt, cause obviously we know that Avatar shouldn’t be getting screenplay considerations. Cameron himself will say (and has said) screenwriting is not his biggest strength.
I am a WGA Member and I was APPALLED when our nominations came out. I’m not one to say the fix was in, but this is incomprehensible. I have spoken to at least 50 members about this and not one of them voted for AVATAR. I’m pretty sure someone in the awards office stuck that one on there just so the studio would screen it for free for Guild member and Cameron would come do a Q&A (which he’s doing on Thursday). No one I know thinks this was a good script. If it really did get enough votes to be nominated, then it’s no wonder the writing on so many movies and TV shows these days is such crap. The bar is obviously quite low.
Avatar was robbed!! A film that no one saw can’t be the best of anything!
Actually, getting a film made well is the biggest part of producing. The bigger budget you have, the easier it’s going to be to produce. So if you take Avatar’s $237M budget and compare it to The Hurt Locker’s $11M budget, it’s easy to see why The Hurt Locker won the award.
Hurt Locker was made on $11 million !?!
I love it even more now. They do deserve the award for producing – it was first rate, and on a shoestring, too!
Yeah, it’s really not. Budgets are relative. And to say that the bigger budget you have, the easier it is to produce, couldn’t be further from the truth. You speak to any producer and they will tell you the more money you have, the harder it gets. I’ve asked that exact question to producers before on sets.
You OBVIOUSLY know nothing about producing if you’re making this statement:
The bigger budget you have, the easier it’s going to be to produce.
Congratulations Kathryn Bigelow. Your film is brilliant.
This is really getting to be loathsome. Again, ‘Mad Men’ and “30 Rock’? Geez, is there nothing else on TV worthy of awards? It’s pathetic to think that the entire Hollywood inner circles are so simple-minded and incapable of being just a scintilla more creative.
All of the other TV comedies and dramas should boycott ALL of the award shows from now on.
Agreed. I think even most fans of 30 Rock (which I still am) would admit that this last season (and the current one) were uneven, at best.
are you guys crazy? “Producing” a film is about producing a GOOD film not just “creating a blockbuster”. Then Transformers would be considered a “great” film and man that is just painful to watch. A film only makes a lot money if it’s on a ton of screens and is “sold” by the marketing department, and, unfortunately, in general people like to see mind numbing stupidity at the cinema (Avatar, Transformers) and not actually have to think & feel (Hurt Locker, Precious). It’s a bummer but true.
BTW, Avatar (3000+ screens) cost somewhere around $400mil (not including $100mil P&A) & has made about $550mil domestically. Hurt Locker (500+ screens) cost $11mil to make and has made about $14mil. So the profit margin is almost equal. How is that a “flop”?
The profit margins are not even close, maryP. You fail to include Avatar’s 1.3B international gross, which is very significant. You also fail to include The Hurt Locker’s P&A costs, which would probably render the film in the red still…
So if you say total spending on Avatar is $500m with $1.8b in box office so for, that’s a margin of 260%. With my estimate of $35 million spent on THL ($11m production + $24m P&A) and #16m in sales, the profit margin is -50%.
With big DVD sales, I’m sure THL will make a nice amount of money, but we’re not there yet. And remember Avatar is certain to make a ton on DVD sales as well.
And I failed to mention, maryP, that the studios only keep about 50% of the box office receipts, so with that in mind THL doesn’t look so good, does it?
I’m sorry Mary, but that last comment is absolutely false. Avatar’s worldwide gross is a week away from crossing $2 billion. The Hurt Locker made $16 million worldwide.
Happy for Hurt Locker but hoping Basterds wins the Oscar and the DGA award. Truly QT’s best picture and a fantastic movie, and while I loved Hurt Locker, I think Basterds deserves it more. Hopefully the academy & the DGA will not vote for Avatar and Cameron.
I agree that Basterds is the greater film, but Hurt Locker has the awards-season edge – and KB will get kudos for the difficulty of filming with no money in a harsh setting. Also, Oscar loves a comeback kid, and her win (for directing) would be historic. Most likely the 2 top prizes will be split – with Hurt Locker, Basterds and Avatar in the hunt.
the producers have only been right 13 times. I still don’t think the Oscar will go to a film still in the red.Compared to Avatar.well there is no comparison. Hurt Locker is at best a mediocre war film that nobody saw . This is no Saving Private Ryan
you are right, it is no ‘saving private ryan’. thank god.
saving private ryan was commercial caca. the hurt locker is ‘apocalypse now’ for the war in iraq.
Since making money seems to equate to quality to some, I say we split the difference. Avatar is big money (Golden Globes), questionable acting (CGI is not acting), Hurt Locker, no money, good acting, well produced (Critics Choice and PGA) Basterds is moderate success and good acting (Critics Choice and SAG), which fits everyone’s criteria. So, Basterds for best picture, which is what I want anyway.
To say “CGI is not acting” is to completely lack an understanding of the craft of how Avatar was made. It is argued that Cameron’s methods and technology take away the confines of a set and tons of lights and equipment surrounding you along with all the people and cameras. It frees the actors from any limitations whatsoever and lets them ACT and nothing else. Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver have both spoken to this fact. What you’re seeing on the screen in AVatar is EVERYTHING the actors have envisioned and communicated through their performance. It’s as much as acting as any other film this year.
Bravo! Excellent post. That person is completely ignorant. CGI can be considered acting in it’s purest sense.
So what’s the deal with Tony Mark on Hurt Locker? He was exec producer and UPM, and is listed as producer but doesn’t get honored by the PGA? Hmmmmm – another example of folks that do lunch rather than make movies?
I think Tony Mark may have been acknowledged by Kathryn on stage. The funniest thing is that Basterds was listed solely as a Universal production in the program. Maybe revenge on Weinstein for being the only studio (apart from Summit) not to take out an ad in the book.
These hardcore AVATAR fans (or “AVATARDS”) are really making me re-consider my position against eugenics. Anyway, congrats to THE HURT LOCKER and Katherine Bigelow. This coupled with INGLORIOUS BASTERDS recent win at the SAG awards may be a sign that Oscar voters will be far wiser this year than they were when TITANIC reigned.
Colin, PGA is not for best distributor of the year, or best marketing of the year. it’s for best film of the year. That’s what awards are for; for quality. For money, marketing, and distribution, there’s already something something called box office. If you knew a little bit of film history, i could give you a list of films that YOU consider masterpieces which have made zero money when they were released. Hey, let’s talk about painting, Van Gogh died poor and without having ever sold a painting, does that make him a worse painter then all the guys you’ve never heard of that made a living at the same time? If you ask Redford he’ll tell you about Jeremiah Johnson not being released for 2 years by Warners, and now it’s a film classic. Was Midnight cowboy a box office success? PGA is about producing a movie, and yes making a movie for 11M in jordan, with an unknown cast about a tough subject is harder to make then being handed hundreds of millions to do whatever you want for years… It’s a different production, that’s all. Producers do not decide the marketing of a movie, do not decide if the audience is going to see it (maybe James Cameron can, but i can tell you, none of the other movies last night could). You make the best movie, you find a distributor (and it’s not easy now) and you try to get people in. Money, success, box-office doesn’t changed the quality of a film. PGA didn’t say Transformers 2 and Paul Blart Mall Cop were the best movies of the year. It’s about quality, not quantity. You might disagree that Hurt Locker is a good movie, but i can tell you it was hard to make. And it doesn’t change the fact that Avatar is a huge success. But go ahead and produce Hurt Locker with 11M, with a relatively unknown cast, with a script about the war, with 120 degrees in august 3 hours away from baghdad etc… have fun, can’t wait to see the movie YOU make.
Surely it’s hard to compare international box office for The Hurt Locker with Avatar as the former doesn’t appear to have been released in that many territories yet.
What about this possibility: Avatar may be the “best film” in the sense of its impact on the present moment – but Hurt Locker may be a great film which will continue to be watched for some time to come.
Wholeheartedly disagree. Avatar. Hurt Locker. Which film will be remembered more in the next several generations? I do know this; I’ve $12.7 million reasons to say that the American public wasn’t buyin’ what The Hurt Locker was sellin’. Yet another Iraq war movie. That’s all it was.
Colin, you’re a PA on The Baster. Acknowledge what you don’t know and go learn something instead of trolling these boards.
@colin has a small point. I recall that Andy Serkis’ portrayal of Gollum/Precious was the only memorable part of the Rings movies, and Serkis even wrote an interesting book about the process. Still, I prefer my actors to be real.
Actually that was a BS credit. I wasn’t really a PA on The Baster, but rather working on Law & Order at the time and The Baster needed to use our stages for access. We all fluff our resumes to a point, but they decided to approve my credit, so I’d be dumb not to take it.
You guys are all way too volatile and taking offense when offense was never given. I really like The Hurt Locker. I never said I didn’t. But it’s pretty clear that many people here fail to recognize what producing is and the parts of the process it entails.
I didnt even hear about The Hurt Locker until it started winning awards. I went out and bought without ever seeing it and am glad I did because it was worth the money. I hope they re-release to theaters because I would spend the money to see it on the big screen since I didnt get the chance to when it was released.
Hope The Hurt Locker wins but if it doesnt I wont be mad because I personally didnt win or lose anything.