The King's Speech claims PGA Award, can it upset The Social Network at the Oscars?

Last night the Producers Guild of America rewarded Tom Hooper's acclaimed period drama The King's Speech with their top honour, The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer Of Theatrical Motion Pictures, ahead of a strong field of nominees including Oscar hopefuls such as Black Swan (dir. Darren Aronofsky), Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan) and The Social Network (dir. David Fincher). Meanwhile Toy Story 3 (dir. Lee Unkrich) took home the prize for Animated Theatrical Motion Picture, with other awards recipients including Waiting for Superman (Documentary Feature), Mad Men (Episodic TV Drama), Modern Family (Episodic TV Comedy), James Cameron (Milestone Award) and Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman (Norman Lear Achievement Award In Television).



The Social Network was named Best Motion Picture - Drama at the Golden Globes this past Sunday and added a further three awards including Best Director, while The King's Speech managed just one (Colin Firth as Best Actor in the Drama category), leaving Fincher's Facebook drama as the likely favourite for Academy success. However in claiming the PGA Award, The King's Speech - which is produced by Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin - now finds itself with a strong chance of nabbing the Oscar for itself, especially given the PGA's track record of predicting two-thirds of all eventual Best Picture winners. Regardless, it now looks like a two horse race for the biggest prize of them all and I'd be very surprised if the Academy voters opted for any of the remaining eight nominees, who will of course be named this coming Tuesday.



Meanwhile The King's Speech also picked up fourteen nominations for the British Academy Film Awards earlier in the week and must surely be a certainty to pick up the Best Film award on home soil come February 13th.



The King's Speech - "A Speech at Wembley"...