Best Adapted Screenplay

This year was unusually short on adaptations, so this could be the easiest race to predict. Slumdog Millionaire, adapted by Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy, is on a roll with the Golden Globe and mounting suspicion the film could ultimately grab Best Picture. Forrest Gump winner Eric Roth has the most literary offering in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and with the film headed for a flurry of nominations, he’s a near-certainty. Then there are two writers who adapted their own stage plays for the screen: Doubt by John Patrick Shanley (an Oscar winner for Moonstruck) and Frost/Nixon by Peter Morgan (a nominee for The Queen). These four are so far ahead of the rest of the pack, but that pack is awfully small. The WGA rounded out their choices with The Dark Knight, but since the film is more admired for its performances and visual style, I don’t see the Academy following suit. Revolutionary Road opened to tepid reviews, and awards groups have almost exclusively honored its performances only, making this a long-shot for a writing nod (and completely out of the running for Director and Picture.) That leaves The Reader to bring up the rear: It’s holocaust-themed and penned by The Hours nominee David Hare, so that should tidy things up nicely. I’m hard-pressed to find any other direction the race could go: Elegy? The Secret Life of Bees? The members of the writers’ branch let their teenage daughters fill out their ballots and Twilight sneaks in?