I think the last film to win the prize that was released so early in the year was Gladiator in 2001.....

It was actually Crash, which in a big upset won Best Picture in 2006. That film was released in May of 2005. Gladiator was also released in May (of 2000) though.

I think the last film to win the prize that was released so early in the year was Gladiator in 2001.....

I can't find that chart I saw on IMDb anymore. Other than the 19, a majority of the others were released in the second half of the year (really August onward). There was hardly anything in the first half of the year. (I think Gladiator and Crash were two of the very few exceptions)

Edited February 3, 200916 yr by bandbfan

Slumdog Millionaire has WON the Writer's Guild of America Award for Best Adpated Screenplay, and Milk has WON the Writer's Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Wow, Slumdog Millionaire SWEPT all the guild awards this year. If it doesn't win the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director, it will be be a huge upset and surprise to me.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/wga_award...d_original_tba/

“Slumdog Millionaire” made a clean sweep of the major guilds tonight as Simon Beaufoy added another trophy to his collection at the Writers Guild of America Awards. Beaufoy beat out Eric Roth for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Jonathan and Christopher Nolan for “The Dark Knight,” John Patrick Shanley for “Doubt,” and Peter Morgan for “Frost/Nixon.”

“Milk”‘s Dustin Lance Black, the only WGA original screenplay nominee also nominated for an Oscar, won in his category.

Black was also previously named the recipient of the Writers Guild of America West’s 2009 Paul Selvin Award, which spotlights work that “embodies the spirit of constitutional rights and civil liberties” for his story chronicling the life and times of the late gay activist Harvey Milk.

Black beat out original screenplay competitors Joel & Ethan Coen for “Burn After Reading,” Woody Allen for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” Tom McCarthy for “The Visitor,” and Robert Siegel for “The Wrestler.”

Both category winners have gone to win Oscars on every occasion since 2003, when Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman won a WGA award for their adapted screenplay “American Splendor” but lost at the Oscars to “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the