Wes Anderson’s off-beat comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel has won the top film prize at the Writers Guild Awards.
The annual awards were announced simultaneously at ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York. Lisa Kudrow hosted the West Coast ceremonies at the Century Plaza, while Larry Wilmore handled emcee duties in New York.
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTELÂ is nominated for nine Oscars and on Saturday evening, the film won the award for best original screenplay – for a script co-authored by Anderson and Hugo Guinness.
The movie is enjoying a lot of recent success after winning a BAFTA for best original screenplay last weekend and it could even bag an Academy Award for the same category on February 22nd at the prestigious Oscar awards. Â
Graham Moore also picked up a gong for the best adapted screenplay award for his work on THE IMITATION GAME  about World War II code-breaker Alan Turing, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley. Moore paid tribute to the computing pioneer “for whom we made this film“.
Moore will also be hoping his script will achieve the same feat next weekend for the best adapted screenplay award during next weekend’s Oscars after missing out on a BAFTA award to Anthony McCarten‘s THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING – which was not eligible as a nominee at the Writers Guild Awards (WGAs), because of Guild rules regarding jurisdiction and membership.
Another major Oscar contender, BIRDMAN, starring Michael Keaton was also ineligible because four of the writers are not guild members.
The Writers Guild Awards could née again prove to be a good award indicator ahead of the Oscars having picked the same winners in the adapted screenplay category 14 times over the past 20 years.
In the television categories HBO’s hit series TRUE DETECTIVE, starring Matthew McConaughey, won best drama and best new series and TV’s LOUIE also picked up two awards, for best comedy series and best comedy episode.
GREY’S ANATOMYÂ creator Shonda Rhimes collected the Paddy Chayefsky Award for career achievement in TV, telling the audience she remains “amazed there is a job where I get to make stuff up for a living“.
And there was a standing ovation as the Screen Laurel Award was presented to Daniel Ramis, on behalf of his late father Harold Ramis, who dies last year at the age of 69, whose screenwriting credits included GHOSTBUSTERS and GROUNDHOG DAY.
