'La La Land,' 'Moonlight,' 'Fences,' and 'Deadpool' Take Producers Guild Nominations

By Dave McNary, Variety

Arrival, Deadpool, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, La La Land, Lion, Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight have been nominated for the Producers Guild of America’s top movie award.

Awards contenders Silence, Jackie, Sully, Loving, Captain Fantastic, Nocturnal Animals, 20th Century Women and Florence Foster Jenkins were overlooked by voters for the PGA’s Darryl F. Zanuck Award. Nominations were announced Tuesday. The winner will be announced on Jan. 28 at the guild’s 28th annual awards show at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Finding Dory, Kubo and the Two Strings, Moana, The Secret Life of Pets and Zootopia received nominations for the PGA’s top animated feature.

La La Land has emerged as a front-runner in the season, setting a record Sunday for the most Golden Globes won by a film with seven, including Best Picture — Musical or Comedy, then led the BAFTA nominations on Tuesday morning with 11. Moonlight won the Golden Globe for best drama.

Deadpool and Lion were the biggest surprises among the nominees — though Deadpool gained momentum last week with an adapted screenplay nomination from the Writers Guild of America. The Ryan Reynolds action-comedy is by far the top grosser among the PGA nominees with $783 million worldwide.

The Zanuck trophy is based on voting by the 7,000 members of the PGA. The Zanuck award has become a strong indicator of Oscar sentiment in recent years, partly because it uses a preferential balloting system that’s similar to that of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The PGA and AMPAS both expanded their voting for the top film to 10 nominees in 2009. Th Academy revised its process in 2011 to system that generates between five and 10 nominees while the PGA has continued to nominate 10 contenders.

The PGA has matched the Oscar for best picture in 19 of its 27 years, though it diverged last year when the Zanuck award went to The Big Short and the Oscar went to Spotlight. The two awards matched in the previous eight years with Birdman, 12 Years a Slave, Argo, The Artist, The King’s Speech, The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire and No Country for Old Men.

Seven of last year’s 10 PGA nominees were also nominated for Best Picture, including The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant and Spotlight.

Here are the PGA nominations for the Zanuck award with producers certified by the guild:

· Arrival

Producers: Dan Levine, Shawn Levy, Aaron Ryder, David Linde

· Deadpool

Producers: Simon Kinberg, Ryan Reynolds, Lauren Shuler Donner

· Fences

Producers: Scott Rudin, Denzel Washington, Todd Black

· Hacksaw Ridge

Producers: Bill Mechanic, David Permut

· Hell or High Water

Producers: Carla Hacken, Julie Yorn

· Hidden Figures

Producers: Donna Gigliotti, Peter Chernin & Jenno Topping, Pharrell Williams, Theodore Melfi

· La La Land

Producers: Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz, Marc Platt

· Lion

Producers: Emile Sherman & Iain Canning, Angie Fielder

· Manchester By the Sea

Producers: Matt Damon, Kimberly Steward, Chris Moore, Lauren Beck, Kevin Walsh

· Moonlight

Producers: Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner & Jeremy Kleiner

Here are the PGA nominations for the top animated film:

· Finding Dory

Producer: Lindsey Collins

· Kubo and the Two Strings

Producers: Arianne Sutner, Travis Knight

· Moana

Producer: Osnat Shurer

· The Secret Life of Pets

Producers: Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy

· Zootopia

Producer: Clark Spencer

The cast of “Moonlight” talk with Yahoo Movies about how you can’t put a label on this movie: