Tuesday, January 21, 2014

2013 Best Picture Oscars and Fiction Adaptations

For way too many years on this blog I have been identifying the novels that are being adapted into movies the previous year.

In most years some of these novels translate to the years best picture nominees.

Yet despite all that tracking, in 2013 not a single adaptation of a novel translated to a best picture nominee (Compared to the year before when 3 of the of the 9 nominees came from novels).

Instead this year's best nominees are:
  • 5 Original works (American Hustle, Nebraska, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her)
  • 4 Based on non-fiction books (Captain Phillips, Philomena, 12 Years A SlaveThe Wolf of Wallstreet
This is a change from the overall trending of the past 10 years, although not the only year in the past 10 that fiction adaptations have been excluded.

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Nominees for Best Picture from Novel from the Previous 10 Year (2003-2012 films)

• 2012  films - best picture nominees: 3 of 9 adapted from a novel (Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, Matthew Quick's Silver Lining Playbook)

• 2011  films - best picture nominees: 5 of 9 adapted from a novel (Kaui Hart Hemmings' The Descendants, Jonathan Safron Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Kathryn Stockett's The Help, Brian Selznick's Hugo, and Michael Murpurgo's War Horse)

• 2010 films - best picture nominees: 2 of 10 adapted from a novel (Charles Portis' True Grit; Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone)

• 2009 films best picture nominees: 2 of 10 adapted from a novel (Saphire's Push [source material for Precious]; Walter Kirn's Up in the Air)

• 2008 films best picture nominees: 2 of 5 adapted from a novel (Vikas Swarup's Q & A [source material for Slumdog Millionaire]*; Bernard Schlink's The Reader)

• 2007 film best picture nominees: 3 of 5 adapated from a novel (Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men*; Ian McEwan's Atonement; Upton Sinclaire's Oil! [source material for There Will Be Blood])

• 2006 films best picture nominees: 0 of 5 adapted from a novel

• 2005 films best picture nominees: 0 of 5 adapted from a novel

• 2004 films best picture nominees: 1 of 5 adapted from a novel (Rex Pickett's Sideways)

• 2003 films best picture nominees: 3 of 5 adapted from novels (J.R.R. Tolkein's The Return of the King*, Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander, Dennis Lehane's Mystic River)

*won the Oscar for best picture

This years percent of Oscar nominees from Novels - 0 of 9 nominees : 0%

The percent of Oscar nominees coming from Novels over the previous 10 years - 21 of 68 nominees: 30.9%

Additionally, 3 of the past 10 years saw the winner coming from a novel.

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