The Writers Guild of America has announced its winners at the annual awards ceremony.
The big surprise of the evening was "Captain Phillips." The Paul Greengrass film took home the award for Best Adapted Screenplay beating out "The Wolf of Wall Street," "Before Midnight," "August: Osage County," and "Lone Survivor."
Meanwhile, "Her" beat out David O. Russell's "American Hustle" for Best Original Screenplay. "American Hustle" was the favorite to win the award after having won the Screen Actors Guild for Best Ensemble. The Spike Jonze film also beat out "Nebraska," "Blue Jasmine," and "Dallas Buyers Club."
In the Best Documentary category "Stories We Tell" took home the award over "We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks," "No Place on Earth," "Herblock: The Black & White," and "Dirty Wars."
The fiction film screenplay awards are important for the Academy Awards because the winner of the WGA usually goes home with the Oscar. In the case of the Best Original Screenplay all five WGA nominees are nominated for the category at the Oscars and based on the this result it's unlikely "Her" will lose the Oscar.
On the other hand, "Captain Phillips" is not a favorite to win the Oscar as two films nominated for the Academy Awards did not qualify for the WGA: "12 Years a Slave" and "Philomena." The fact that there was a difference between the WGA and Oscar nominations is a huge deal in this category because "12 Years a Slave" has won the majority of the precursor awards. Furthermore, the Steve McQueen film is currently a front-runner to win the Best Picture award and likely has a huge advantage over "Captain Phillips" in the screenplay category.