Don’t Look Up Wins Best Original Screenplay At WGA Awards

The Netflix original movie Don’t Look Up snagged the award for the Best Original Screenplay at the 74th annual Writers Guild Awards. Original Screenplay is one of the top two awards a film can win at the WGAs, along with Adapted Screenplay, which went to Apple TV+’s CODA. Don’t Look Up was an immediate hit for Netflix, notching the biggest week of views in the history of Netflix’s platform with 152 million hours streamed. The disaster movie directed by Adam McKay boasted an all-star lineup including Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Rob Morgan, Cate Blanchett, and Tyler Perry.

The WGA award for Don’t Look Up sets it up perfectly for an Oscar win at the 94th Academy Awards later this week. It’s currently up for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing. Ron Perlman, one of Don’t Look Up‘s stars, blasted those who were critical of the movie in an interview with The Independent: “F*** you and your self-importance and this self-perpetuating need to say everything bad about something just so that you can get some attention for something that you had no idea about creating…It’s corrupt. And it’s sick. And it’s twisted….(I) understand that it’s part of how the internet has almost killed journalism. And now journalism is trying to do everything they can to co-opt and maintain their importance.”

The synopsis for Don’t Look Up reads: “Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), an astronomy grad student, and her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) make an astounding discovery of a comet orbiting within the solar system. The problem — it’s on a direct collision course with Earth. The other problem? No one really seems to care. Turns out warning mankind about a planet-killer the size of Mount Everest is an inconvenient fact to navigate. With the help of Dr. Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), Kate and Randall embark on a media tour that takes them from the office of an indifferent President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic son and Chief of Staff, Jason (Jonah Hill), to the airwaves of The Daily Rip, an upbeat morning show hosted by Brie (Cate Blanchett) and Jack (Tyler Perry). With only six months until the comet makes impact, managing the 24-hour news cycle and gaining the attention of the social media obsessed public before it’s too late proves shockingly comical — what will it take to get the world to just look up?!”

Was Don’t Look Up deserving of its WGA win? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!