After 2020 expectedly proved to be an underwhelming year for the entertainment industry, this year’s Writers Guild of America Awards are packed to the rafters with powerful contenders across the categories.
The voting process to determine the nominees for the main categories of best drama series, best comedy series, and best new series will take until Jan. 5 to conclude, while the best original screenplay and adapted screenplay don’t open until Jan. 12. Other nominations for TV categories and related media will be announced on Jan. 13, and the competitors for the screenplay categories on Jan 27. Final voting to determine the winners will take place between Feb. 2 and Feb. 16, with the main winners announced at the March 20 ceremony.
As per Variety’s report, the front-runner for the original screenplay category may be the biopic drama King Richard, written by Zach Baylin, while other works like Fran Kranz’s Mass, Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, and Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero are also strong candidates.
In the adapted screenplay domain, Joel Coen’s surrealistic adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, titled The Tragedy of Macbeth, has a good chance of making the cut. Other front-runners include Lin-Manuel Miranda for Tick, Tick… Boom! and Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth for Dune. There are several other acclaimed names, like Sain Heder’s CODA and Rebecca Hall’s Passing, not to mention Drive My Car and The Tender Bar, penned by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and William Monahan respectively.
Elsewhere, in the drama series category, none of last year’s nominees released new episodes in 2021, so we won’t have a repeat of them for WGA 2022. Of course, going a little back, shows like The Handmaid’s Tale, Succession, and Pose all have a solid chance to make a comeback. As for the best comedy series, all 2021 nominees are eligible this year as well, but perhaps the strongest contender is once again Ted Lasso, which won the award last year.
Last but not least, in the new series category, shows like Reservation Dogs, Girls5eva, Hacks, Only Murders in the Building, and Ameriacn Rust all have a chance to compete with one another in February.