Among the big winners of the 74th annual Writers Guild Awards were Don’t Look Up, Coda, Hacks and Succession.
The ceremony took place virtually on Sunday and was hosted by Ashley Nicole Black. The US comedian, writer and actress joked that the event was virtual not so much because of Covid-19, but for sparing writers from “having to answer the question, ‘So what are you working on right now?’”
“The only thing worse than answering that question is having to answer it when you’re trying to bite into a free slider,” she said.
Black was nominated in the Best Comedy Series category for her work on the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso, which won two awards last year. However, the series lost to Hacks, which was one of several double winners on the night.
The winners
Adam McKay’s doomsday satire Don’t Look Up was named winner of the Original Screenplay award. The film beat fellow Academy Award nominees King Richard and Licorice Pizza, as well as The French Dispatch and Being the Ricardos.
The award marked the third Writers Guild Awards win for McKay, who shared story credit for the film with journalist David Sirota. McKay had previously won in 2010 for his work on Saturday Night Live and again in 2016 for co-writing The Big Short.
In his pre-recorded acceptance speech, McKay said: “If this is airing, this is real, legitimate excitement.” He also made a point to thank Sirota, who “gave me the idea for this script”.
Sian Heder’s CODA was awarded the prize for Best Adapted Screenplay. The drama, centred around a hearing child in a deaf family, came ahead of Dune, Nightmare Alley, tick, tick…BOOM! and West Side Story.
“I had a really incredible education writing this script,” Heder said in her video acceptance speech. She thanked “the people from the deaf community who were my collaborators”, including deaf consultants and sign-language advisers.
An Apple Original, CODA is loosely based on the 2014 French comedy-drama La Famille Belier. The film is one of the top contenders in this year's Oscars and has been nominated in three categories, including best picture and best adapted screenplay. US actor Troy Kotsur, who became the first deaf person to win a Bafta recently, is also in the running for the best supporting actor award.
The comedy-drama series Hacks won awards in both the Comedy Series and New Series categories. Succession also nabbed two awards, winning Drama Series and Episodic Srama.
Exposing Muybridge, a feature documentary about 19th-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge, won the award for Documentary Screenplay.
The Kate Winslet-starring crime mini series Mare of Easttown won in the Original Long Form category, while Netflix drama Maid took home the Adapted Long Form award.
The sitcom Tuca and Bertie won in the Animation category. The Great, meanwhile, won in the Episodic Comedy category and 60 Minutes won in two out of three news categories. The concluding season of Conan O’Brien’s eponymous talk show also won for Comedy/Variety Talk series.
