Who Will The Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay?
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This is the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill. I'm Rebecca Shinsky. Today, we are going to cross over, Rebecca, into the world of movies in a truly chaotic Oscars year.

We're going to spend some time talking about the adapted screenplay nominees and the movies. I have not seen them all. You have. I've seen several of them. And talk about why we think they're going to win and then also the virtues of the movies themselves. Is that what you were expecting to do today? It is. And I did a percentage ranking for each of, which I believe you did as well, of how likely. I did as well.

We think each one is to win. Truly chaotic is a great description of this Oscar season in many ways. And this class, I think in particular. So do you want to explain why we're doing the pie, the pies versus just a straight up ranking? This is a different wrinkle and we're trying to capture something. Yeah. Well,

It's more interesting to have some kind of, we talked about, should we do a ranking of like most likely to least likely, but the difference between like your second and your third can be really significant. So we're trying to capture a weighted probability with, which is functionally what we're doing here. Like I think this title is, has a 4% chance of winning. And this other one has a 73% chance of winning or, or whatever to really get at the more nuanced, uh,

explanation for each of our perspectives on these five candidates that have made the finals for best adapted screenplay. Do you want to talk about our personal preferences before we do the ratings, the ratings? You want to do it as we do them? Or how would you like to separate sort of what we like versus what we think may or may not win? Let's

Let's, I think, mix them all in together, but we can distinguish between personal preference and what we know in our limited knowledge as movie followers about what the Academy might do here. Let's see. Programming notes. I should say we are...

Rebecca Romney is joining me on first edition. That episode's coming out on Thursday, the 20th, February 20th. Oh, that will be out before this comes out then because we're recording this early. Oh, you've already listened to it. That's right, we're recording this early. So I have no idea what you will have heard and what's coming up pretty soon. I can say in any regard that if you're interested in seeing us live and in person and can get yourself to Powell's downtown on Burnside in Portland, Oregon on the evening of March 13th, 2020,

2025. Rebecca and I are going to do a live event there. We're going to do the most recommendable books of the

21st. What century? Yeah, 21st century so far. We've each picked 10 books. We don't know what the other persons are, and we're going to run through them there. There's going to be a registration link in the offing. I'm expecting that sort of any day now. We're still a few weeks out. It is ticketed. It's 15 bucks a pop, though that $15 goes towards a purchase of Palace. So you're going to come to a bookstore for our event. You're going to spend 15 bucks. So it's essentially free is how I

think about it there. And we're going to hand sell you 20 great books. So good luck spending only 15. And I'm sure you've never, we've, you've never talked about any of them on the show. If you've listened for a long time, completely new surprises from my list.

list there's probably some of this to be done in the opening of that event but what distinguishes a recommendable book from like a best book or a fun book or a book we both just like this was a really fun challenge and I hated it it was so difficult so hard

So hard. Yeah, I agree. It was a really, really tough thing to do. All right. With that, let's see. You can Patreon. You can find there. You will have. It's already been in the feed at this point, though. I'm editing it today. Rebecca and I talked for a good long time about Life in Three Dimensions by Professor Shigeru Oishi there. What else we do in the Patreon coming up? We're going to be doing. What are we going to be doing?

I will be on vacation. So there's going to be like a gap in the feed and we're going to have a book club about Death Takes Me by Christina Rivera Garza. Right, right, right. And who knows what else? We've done some pop-up Patreon episodes after we've each had, you know, interesting trips in the last couple of years. And I will be in the Arctic Circle in Finland, hopefully seeing the Northern Lights and, you know, meeting some reindeer and stuff. So if there's interest...

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Low to high, high to low. Sure. Let's go. Sure. I said, I gave you two different things. And you said, sure. Let's go low to high. Okay. Let me just read the names of the nominees first for folks who are unfamiliar. So there's Emilia Perez, which was written by Jacques Odiard based on a libretto that he wrote and on the novel, a coot by Boris Razon, sing, sing written by Greg Quedar and Clinton Bentley based on the sing, sing follies by John H. Richardson and,

A Complete Unknown, written by James Mangold and Jay Cox, based on the book Dylan Goes Electric by Elijah Wald. Conclave, written by Peter Straughan, based on the novel by Robert Harris. And Nickel Boys, written by Rommel Ross and Jocelyn Barnes, based on, of course, the novel by Colson Whitehead. I'm still even fudging with my... Even as you were talking, I'm fudging with my numbers because I'm just not sure how to proceed here. Top level. Which ones have you seen? I've seen Sing Sing, Conclave, and then I've...

I skipped through Amelia Perez. That is the way to watch Amelia Perez. Because I wanted to get the vibe, but from all that I've heard, it doesn't sound like my jam and it's kind of not. Anyway, that's what I've seen. I will be seeing Complete Unknown probably this weekend. I think my kids will watch that with me. And I got a... It just came... Nickel Boys just came out on Amazon. I can rent it a bunch of places. I just have not been in the mood because I don't think Michelle...

I mean, she's interested in it, but after work at 8.30 on a Wednesday night, Rebecca, a bit of a tough ask, to be perfectly honest. Yeah, I did a 10.45 a.m. Saturday morning matinee for that and was pleasantly surprised by how full it was the day that I went to see it. But yeah, you need a moment, you need an empty house for your projector screen in your living room to really make that one happen. So that's one I'm just not sure what... I will see it, but it may be...

In the great by and by. I don't know. I'm going to get it before this actual award ceremony is here. Okay. So, yeah. I mean, the family, we all watched and enjoyed Conclave. Sing Sing was quite moving and Coleman Domingo was terrific. Zoe Saldana is worth watching Zoe Saldana scenes and Amelia Perez. The rest of it maybe is not worth people checking out, I guess. I'm not a film critic at this point, but... And then...

Of course, the other thing about Emilio Perez, and we can, let's go low to high because I think it's more interesting that way. Yes. I think it is cooked in every category except for Zoe. Me neither.

too. So folks, if you're not really super following movies as a little overview, Amelia Perez is set in Mexico. Zoe Saldana plays an attorney who is hired by like a drug kingpin who wants to transition and wants Zoe Saldana to help make this possible. She's supposed to like fly around the world, find a clinic.

help him undergo the transition to be able to live his life as a woman and then like maintain relations with his family and do all sorts of things. It is, it's a musical. It's,

Chaotic at best. And I thought it was pretty messy when I saw it. For a while, this was kind of surprisingly the favorite to win Best Picture. It's been in the race and a big point of conversation, but also a big source of contention in the movie world.

world over the last several months as like the film is set in Mexico, but very few Mexican people are involved in it. The main character is trans, but a lot of trans and LGBTQ organizations have spoken out against the representation in the film and talked about it as regressive. And there was some like, well, maybe the Academy is going to like line up behind this because it's

It's a signal that the Academy and that Hollywood are not going to get like Hollywood is part of the resistance and is not going to give into the more conservative cultural narratives of the time. But a few weeks ago, old tweets from the movie's star, Carla Sofia Gascon, were people have been saying like unearthed, but they were in her Twitter feed.

the whole time. They were on Earth. They were just there. They were Earth, but they were in Spanish. And I think that the best explanation for what happened is probably someone...

at the studio when they were vetting people making this film, did not go to the trouble to translate tweets into Spanish and see that Carla Sofia Gascon had said some things that were pretty racist and pretty bigoted against other groups at various points. And so this has been, I think, all but torpedoed, as you said. I gave it a 2% chance just because maybe...

I had one, but I had the courage to give it zero. I don't think there's any chance this is happening. Yeah.

And as we're recording this on February 17th, voting closes tomorrow on the 18th. So this broke while the last push of Oscar voting was really fresh. Yeah, I don't think there's much chance for it. I also don't think it should have been that high in the conversation. Well, there you go. I think that's the base case, right? It was probably fourth or fifth going into it. I mean, if there was a huge upswelling and we all loved Amelia Perez, right? But that's just not what happened.

It just didn't happen that way. Right. And like, I guess to remind myself as much as we remind listeners here and best adapted screenplay, we're still talking about what is the best screenplay. It's just, what is the best screenplay that happens to be adapted from existing workplaces?

It's not about how faithful or good of an adaptation of the original it is. So I think to a first approximation, we should assume the viewers and the voting body have not read the source materials or seen the source materials for most of these films. If I remember correctly too, in the, in the best picture, that's the whole Academy, but in the more targeted ones, like these are writers voting on this, right. On this particular award. So, um,

A more writerly kind of one is interesting to think about. But in this case, I'm not sure there's much affection for even knowledge of the extant source text.

Is it a particularly writerly story? Not really, I don't think. Like you're not there for the dialogue. You're there for spectacle in Amelia Perez as much as anything. Yeah, I had it at a coward's 1%. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to go zero because if we wake up and Amelia Perez has won Best Adapted Screenplay,

I should just throw in the towel of guessing anything ever when it comes to cultural events because I just don't see a world in which this happens. Yeah, I'd be really surprised. And the last several winners of this category have been on the more literary side of things like Moonlight, Call Me By Your Name, Black Klansman, Jojo Rabbit, Coda, Women Talking, and last year was American Fiction. And Amelia Perez just does not...

go with that vibe. Yes. In my reading of the film. Okay. So zero and 2%. So let's go up to your fourth weight. A complete unknown. I gave it 8%.

Well, this is clearly going to be our biggest disagreement. I think the Chalamet train is running. I think people like Bob Dylan. And I think a lot of... I probably... I think there's a chance this is the most read book amongst the category here. I have this as my number one choice. 34%. I think Chalamet could win. It's not going to win Best Director and Best Picture, any of those things. But like...

It's Bob Dylan. Like people get it. This is Bob Dylan. They don't know the book, but they know adapting Bob Dylan's life. So I think there's something to that. I think you're right that the Chalamet train is moving. I think he's going to win best actor. He has a very strong chance. Dude has been out there campaigning. He's everywhere as a screenplay.

It's not as messy as Amelia Perez, but it doesn't totally hang together. It doesn't totally work. I suspected watching it that a lot of that maybe had to do with the organization of the book. It's about the night that Bob Dylan blew up the folk world or supposedly blew up the folk world. Everyone was afraid he was going to blow up the folk world by playing it.

an electric set or really becoming a musician who played electric. And you spend most of the two and a half hours with him and with Edward Norton, who plays Pete Seeger, and with Scoop McNary, who is playing Woody Guthrie, learning about the folk music scene and it's like 1960s resistance vibes. And the folk guys were just convinced that if Dylan plugged his guitar into an amp,

like it's all over for not just folk music, but the resistance. And I came home telling Bob, like, I think you can draw a straight line from Dylan plugs into the amp to like, eventually we get rage against the machine playing resistance music, politically active.

music. But I just didn't think the whole thing, like as a screenplay, it's not that regularly. Well, you've seen it. I haven't. So that's one. I'm on a limb here. So that makes sense to me. Yeah. 8%. My 8% might be a little low. But when I had given 2% to Amelia Perez, I was looking to round things out. Like, let's do some clean math. So I gave it 8%. That's my fourth. I also think there's a chance that it's the most

It will have been, is that my right tense verb here? It will have been the most seen of any of these movies. Maybe this in Conclave. Like the kinds of people who turned into screenplay writers give a crap about Bob Dylan and they have seen this. That's true. That is true. And I've seen some clip packages and there's some good lines. Like there's some good dialogue. And of the movies I've seen, like I really liked Conclave. Yeah. Do I remember one line of dialogue? No.

No, but I already remember some of them. Of course it's a war. Yeah, of course it's a war, I guess. And even that was kind of hammy. I didn't think actually Tucci was great in it, to be perfectly honest with you. But even the clip package I've seen, there's some of the Dylan stuff that I remember and some of the Edward Norton stuff. So a combination of people care about Dylan, most people...

who are writers will have seen this movie. Writers care about language. Dylan's won a Nobel prize in literature. It's true. It's true. So I just think there may be like a, I,

I don't know that it should win necessarily. I don't think I would pick it even having seen it sight unseen. But I think once you start putting pebbles in the jar, there's awful lot of pebbles to raise the water level. That's, I mean, you make good points here. Availability is definitely a factor. Like people have to have seen these films to feel comfortable voting for them. And I do think there's like very strong availability for A Complete Unknown and for Conclave as well. Conclave is my third. So what was your fourth? My fourth then was Sing Sing.

And the only, and I gave it 10% chance. I think it has a chance of being like the indie darling pick. Like in a lot of time, indie darling picks get, you know, adapted screenplay or screenplay because the writers, I don't know, I think seem to be more interested in either actually or performing like weirder, stranger, more literary sort of talky intellectual stuff on the whole. I think this movie came out too early in,

Yeah. Right? I think it's been out for a while. And I think it's got maybe the inverse of the complete unknown problem where the story has been Coleman Domingo. And I can't remember the dude that kind of got snubbed for Best Supporting Actor, right? Clarence Macklin. Clarence. Those two have been the story. And I don't think it has much sort of awareness or, I mean, just not many people have seen this.

Though it is theatrical. So that's the one thing I'm not so sure how to factor that in. Yeah, I struggled with that too. I gave it 19%. It's my third pick for similar reasons. Like there's a lot of affection for Coleman Domingo, but he doesn't have a writing credit here. And

And I think if it has a shot, it's because it's a movie about the power of the arts and the Academy loves a movie about the power of the arts, but it's not, I mean, for being about black men, mostly black men in prison, experiencing the arts as a mode of healing and like self-help really, it doesn't feel terribly political. And I think if the Academy voters are looking for a political statement, they have some other options. Uh,

in this category but I really really enjoyed Sing Sing they changed the release date a couple times and then it came out like in October and then went back in the vault for a little while and then they were gonna like roll it out to more theaters at some point I'm not sure how that has happened but not I don't think nearly as many people have seen this as want to see it or like it'll probably do great on streaming but that's too late for it to

win an Oscar. I don't think the release and I'm going to use the term very generously here strategies around Sing Sing or Nickel Boys has helped their case at all. I agree. I've been trying to see Nickel Boys since October. That's the kind of movie that over winter break I could have found some time to go.

I'm going to watch it. I mean, I don't know. It's just like, it feels like it never really came out on. It's like there. It's like, it feels it never came out and I was looking so forward to it. I have Nickel Boys as my next choice. I think I also wonder too about two stories that kind of got smushed around and

I just don't know like which one of them is going to be as thought of as an adaptation because I don't know. I haven't looked at the past winners. I should have spent some more time. But like, does it matter that Sing Sing is based on a, isn't it a magazine article? Yeah, it's based on a big New Yorker piece. Yeah. So, which I love a big New Yorker piece.

But I don't like Spotlight, I guess, was not. No, Spotlight was the original screenplay. I keep wanting that to have been based on a book because I keep wanting to go read the original book that it's based on. But I can't think. And again, I didn't go look and Google the thing. I couldn't think of an example of an adapted from a magazine piece.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I'm not really sure about that. I have Nickel Boys as my top pick, and I have some Oscar voting stuff for that. But do you want me to save that till we get higher up there? Yeah, let's save that. I guess, well, we can do whatever. So Nickel Boys is my next. I had Sing Sing at 10% chance, I guess, to say that. Not a big... I mean, I had 19. A puncher's chance. A puncher's chance. Yeah. It would be...

That's surprising. Like sometimes adapted screenplay is a place that voters go for a movie that they love that they don't think has a shot in the other categories it's nominated in. Maybe that'll happen for Sing Sing. I think that's a lot more likely for Nickel Boys. Yeah, I have Nickel Boys as my middle. So I have a 22% chance. Basically, here was my thinking is I think it's got a good chance.

I had complete unknown one. And I think Conclave is a better chance than Nickel Boys. So what was left in my number system to put it in that way? And I think maybe, maybe, maybe the cinematography of Nickel Boys is overshadowing screenplay.

Like I think when they're thinking of what Nickel Boys is doing, they're not thinking words in final draft. I think they're thinking what they've done with the camera and what the actors have done with that. And I think that's warranted.

But I just think people aren't like, what's the best story of the year? And I don't know that they're thinking, because the first thing people are going to talk about is first person point of view. So how is it going to win adapted screenplay? Though I like the movie, and I like the idea of the movie from all intents and purposes. I've heard it's very good. I also very much like the under. It feels like an interesting match. But interestingly, for the most literary of the source materials here, the translation maneuver was mostly a filmic one rather than a words one.

But I think that's, I agree. I think that how it was filmed has overshadowed conversations about the screenplay. But in order to slip the film into that first person perspective that actually bounces between two first person perspectives and to pull off, there's a pretty big reveal at the end of the book and at the end of the film and to pull, like to write that in and

I'm trying not to spoil it for you too. I think I've read around. I haven't directly been spoiled, but I've got a sense maybe of what's going on. Yeah, that reveal gets translated into what kind of becomes a frame story for the film. And it's not revealed in the book until the very end that there is screenplay work involved.

Oh, I believe it. I did believe that. Yeah, yeah. There was, I guess we'll just do Conclave last because we're talking about Nickel Boys now. I gave it 51%. I think this is over half. I hope it's not wish casting, but I will acknowledge this might be wish casting. Yeah.

on my part, but I did some half-assed internet research, as they would say at The Ringer. Rommel Ross just won the Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for this. And that is historically not super strong, but a pretty strong correlation with the Oscars. Voters are looking for somewhere to go after the Amelia Perez situation. I like that point. He's on the come up at the right time.

because these voting bodies are influenced by each other and a lot of writers are members of multiple ones. And so they're kind of seeing what happens or you can wait and see what happens in some of these earlier, more specialized Guild Awards before you cast your Oscar votes. I also do think this might be a way for some voters to honor Rommel Ross because he's not likely to take Best Picture even though Nickel Boys did get nominated and he wasn't nominated for Best Director. Right.

But he's won some directing honors at a few of the other awards this season. The downside is that first person shooting is divisive. Not everybody loved the way that the film or like not everyone resonated or got what the film was doing. And I don't know, like, is it a thing that if you're a writer, you can respect that choice, even if you didn't personally like the choice? Like, can you see that it's a...

an interesting thing. I don't know. I feel like there's a, if we had done this a month ago, I would probably have put nickel boys in like fourth or fifth place of likelihood because it was struggling to get seen. But like the Amelia Perez stuff just opened up so much space. And then Ross is like, he's hitting momentum at exactly the right time. Yeah. It's an interesting point about where the Amelia Perez, if there was people, if there were people, um,

into the Mishigas, especially around the tweets, I think that was a real critical point. For better or worse, I think the critiques about representation of trans identity and mixed identity, I felt like that was water off a duck's back in a lot of ways. I agree. I don't think the Academy really cared about that. But I think that this one really stuck. So I don't know where they go. Do they go to Sing Sing because that's also more theatrical? Do they go here? I do think the idea that Rommel Ross, because he gets the

joint screenplay credit here and thus the nomination there's a lot of good feeling that could flow from other categories and maybe because on the best picture front you're looking at are any of these i mean i don't even know what i mean the brutalist i guess is a front runner and nora seems very much to be picking up steam they're out of the adapted screenplay race so maybe what's your third selection it feels like conclave has in complete unknown have some maybe

I don't know. I think after Nora's wins over the weekend and recently, I don't think they really actually do anymore. And some of these categories are ranked choice voting. I'm not sure that all of them are, but like Best Picture is ranked choice. Some of the big ones are. And I think there's a version there where like enough interest, like, you know, people maybe make Nickel Boys their third choice in Best Picture, but that good feeling for it might carry over. So I'm going better than half odds. 51%. That's a bold vote. The coward.

Howard's bold vote. Well, for a nomination like this that feels so chaotic, that's a pretty strong show of support. Can I sidebar for just a minute about something that I had an idea for? And doing my very limited research, I was reading about Rommel Ross, and I guess I remembered some about him. Here's two things I didn't remember. One is that he's won a nomination for Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Yes. And he played basketball at Georgetown. Oh, okay.

Is there now something I want more than a Mel Ross-directed documentary about pickup basketball that Ross Gay and Hanif Abdurraqib write and consult on? There's nothing I want more than that, and I care a lot less about basketball than you do. I mean, in terms of wish casting, that's a pretty big one, but it feels possible. That doesn't feel impossible. It does. It's reasonable. I don't know how many documentaries he's going to do after this.

But like if Hanif Abdurraqib is not already on Ramel Ross's reading radar, I would be shocked. Has to be. Yeah. Literally added film adapters who played basketball. I mean, he has to at least know about it. So that's pretty interesting. A really interesting guy. I like that sidebar. Yeah, there you go. Switch cast.

And let's see. So I guess then the last one we really have to talk about is Conclave. That's my second choice. I put it one percentage point behind Complete Unknown. Okay. I think this is one where maybe my own stuff is getting away. I liked it fine. I didn't love it. Yeah. I thought it could have been...

I don't know. You know what I wanted more? Sorkin-like dialogue, I think is what I wanted from this political. I wanted a little more. If we're going to fight and we fight with words, joust, baby, give me more parries and jabs and give me language and give me biblical references and just let me roll around in this stuff. And it was reserved, and I guess it makes sense now.

It felt maybe it was trying to be more realistic than I wanted it to be, honestly, in terms of the dialogue. Like, I don't mind some stylized. This is all kind of drama queens wearing crazy clothes and...

picking on each other to be the Pope. Let's roll around in it. Let's make this theatrical. I want it to be more like a stage play and stage play needs dialogue. I think that's a great point. I mean, this is the guy who brought us Silence of the Lambs, Robert Harris. So like dude knows dramatic roll around in it. Yeah. Kinds of writing. I really enjoyed going to see Conclave and like, man, the cast is just stacked and

Lithgow and Fiennes. And I agree, it's not my favorite Stanley Tucci, but he's doing some interesting stuff. I do have this one as my second as well. I gave it 20%. So it's 1% ahead of Sing Sing in my rankings. But I just did not think the writing was that impressive. There's a big surprise near the end that felt clunky to me. And I understand that's an artifact that it comes out of the book. And so maybe that's how it comes across here.

in the book as well. Like it's just not nearly as like highfalutin as the setting is, you know, like we're going to pick a new Pope and there's all this political intrigue and like palace intrigue and people have stories and like long held vendettas against each other. And,

I agree. I think there was so much opportunity to make it really sharp. And it could have even just been like 15% sharper and still been very accessible to a mainstream movie going audience. Like maybe you don't go full Sorkin because you don't want to turn off like

middle-of-the-road, casual viewers. I don't think you do turn them off. West Wing was a huge pop. I hope not. That's true. I don't think you do. That's true. Yeah. I think there was meat left on the bone there. This one I put in second place because of availability. I think a lot of people have seen it.

And that's the first hurdle. But it's not nearly as literary or like highbrow, for lack of a better term, as a lot of the recent winners of this category. So I would be really surprised to see the writers vote for this.

Today's episode is brought to you by Hachette Audio, publisher of You Didn't Hear This From Me by Kelsey McKinney. In You Didn't Hear This From Me, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Like, why is gossip considered a sin, and how can we better recognize when it's being weaponized? Also, why do we think we're entitled to every detail of a celebrity's personal life?

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I can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto-friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger. So I can get in more squats anywhere I can. One, two, three. Will that be cash or credit? Credit. Galaxy S25 Ultra, the AI companion that does the heavy lifting so you can do you. Get yours at Samsung.com. Compatible with select apps requires Google Gemini account results may vary based on input check responses for accuracy.

of course you realize what we just did is we gave something a demerit for not being smart enough and i'm not sure that's smart i'm not i'm actually not sure that's smart yeah but in looking at the past the recent past winners like american fiction took it last year coda took it a few years before that women talking took it in 2024 from the 2023 films like

Jojo Rabbit, Call Me By Your Name, these are not accessible, lower common denominator kinds of writing. Yeah, I think that's true. But I think this probably clears the bar of, did it feel writerly? Because it's just a bunch of dudes walking around saying words at each other. That's the action. Maybe the setting does the highbrow work because we're talking about something like rarefied air. It looks unbelievable. It's so cool to look at. The whole thing, it really looks fantastic.

You know, it turns out they knew what they were doing over the last 2,000 years in the Catholic Church. Like, wear some weird looking like priest stuff. And it does a lot of your work for thinking this matters and taking it seriously. Yeah, do some pomp and some circumstance and like some secret voting. And yeah, that's all that. All the political machinations of it were really fun. I also, I don't know whether or not this...

has ranked choice of O-Sing and even if it did, I think there is a world in which, all right, we said Complete Unknown has a Chalamet thing people can hang on. Nickel Boys has a cinematography thing people can hang on. Sing Sing has a Coleman Domingo thing people are going to hang on.

If you're looking to give Conkley some shine, this feels like it's going to be your best shot at this point in the major categories. Maybe best costume. I don't know what else. I'm not even sure what's up for that stuff. Fiennes is up for best actor, but the idea that he would be both Chalamet playing Bob Dylan and Adrian Brody in The Brutalist. It just doesn't seem possible. And people like Ray Fiennes. Yeah. So I just don't see... I feel like maybe...

It has even more of a case than Nickel Boys for where does the affection for this movie flow into some other places. Anything else you saw last year that you would have liked to have seen in this award? I'm looking at my wrist and I couldn't even remember what else was adaptations. I don't remember if there were major snubs or other kinds of things that got into the mix. Let's see. The Taste of Things. Well, that was last year though.

I did like that movie. Oh, man. The Taste of Things was great. I am not sure... Yeah. I don't think I saw anything either. What was based on... Yeah, no. I mean, the stuff... I mean, The Return, I think, was the most recent adaptation that I saw. Which you liked? Which I did really like. But my favorite things I've seen so far, or at the end of last year and early this year, were not...

Like I'm pulling for the substance at this point. Give to me more that award. Go ahead. That film was fun. I really liked a Nora. I liked a real pain, but I haven't seen a lot of adaptations this year. I haven't seen wicked yet. I was never in the wicked hive.

and I just cannot like motivate myself to go spend three hours at the theater. So I think I am just going to wait and watch it at home. I did take your note. I'm not going to watch it on a plane for the first viewing, like get a good, I have good sound at home and a big screen and,

So I haven't done that. Yeah, I think... This was an interesting year. There weren't other... There were some interesting TV shows maybe that you could talk about. But like, I don't see another one from 2024 adaptations that were all that amazing. I do find myself wishing, for example...

Like, in terms of achievements in adaptation, if we're using about that, and we just sort of, if there was an Emmy for this, which there should be, by the way. Oh, yeah. That would be amazing. And maybe that's a good future episode for next year if we do the Emmys for. Because you look at Shogun, I'm like, what an achievement of adaptation that is. Unbelievable stuff. Ripley, too. I frankly think Ripley would have been a contender for a feature film.

Oh, totally. If you make it a feature film, that would have been absolutely on there. Yeah. So that's, I think Shogun. Your beloved Say Nothing could have contended for an adaptation. Yeah, I think Shogun is maybe a more impressive. Oh, well, yeah. Adaptation, like a feat of adaptation, having read source material for both, just because of difficulties of, I mean, just the language and all the things that go into it. But there's all kinds of interesting stuff. And I think I'd put the TV adaptations against any one of these for sure. Yeah.

I'm making a note to think about this around the Golden Globes and the Emmys because I don't think that our TV awards have caught up to the fact that so much TV is adaptations. Now that we have all of these miniseries and limited runs, it's not just like a thing that HBO does occasionally, but Netflix and Hulu and Apple are building business models around this stuff. And it would have been great a few years ago to see Pachinko get a nomination. Yep.

Yeah, and we had Dark Matter and Presumed Innocence. And we've seen Silo and things that people really like. I don't know how many of them compete. I think it would be cool to have a mixed...

film and tv like just best adaptation like put them all in there they don't get to scrap very much it's like the all-star game you can see the afc and the nfc um i guess that's the pro it's the thing we can do at the end of the year we'll just throw them all into a pot together and give them a book riot award yeah i mean i'm tipping my hand now that it's probably going to be shogun at this point was there ever a world i know going into it ends with us

That there was hope amongst, I think, Blake Lively's camp that this would be a... I'm trying to even think of what the equivalent would be to make Blake Lively into the kind of person that could... Well, look at another adaptation from last year, Amy Adams in Night Bitch, right? Is there a world in which It Ends With Us takes Blake Lively to a place where she could get these kinds of roles on a consistent basis? Like using the...

I don't know, arm's length. A lot of people have kept it in with us from serious art discourse. We may have had a couple of arms in that scrum, I will say. Yeah.

Is there a world in which if it was really well done, that could have been an adapted screenplay nominee? Or is it just the source material just made it impossible? I think the source material makes it impossible. Even the best adaptation of a mess is still pretty messy. And that it doesn't know what genre it wants to be. Readers rolled around with that. But as a work of writing, that screenplay was...

If it had a shot at anything, it would have been like, what is the new Oscar from the box office achievement? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is you made a lot of money and we want to give you an Oscar, but we don't want to give you any of the serious ones. It's not good. Just made a lot of money. Right. Or it's not bad. Not bad. Yeah. And I think there could have been a case for it ends with us there. Like I do think the adaptation was better than like the movie was better than the book, but I also thought that was a low bar to clear. Yeah.

How close do you think, like how much, how many percent better did the Night Bitch movie need to be for it to be a conversation for a screenplay? Oh, that's a good question. I think if the screenplay had stayed more faithful to the book, if the screenplay had gone in the like complicated direction that the ending of the book goes in, it could have really been a contender. But the screenplay

softened edges of what the what the I can't remember the screenwriter's name what she did there it really took like it took the teeth out of it and made it very like pat and pretty predictable but if it had been really faithful to Rachel Yoder I think that could have been a contender here I remember I listened to you and Vanessa talk about and I haven't seen the substance though I know there's that did very well

And I wonder if the producers behind Night Bitch saw what, you know, kind of the gross, you know, the body horror stuff that Substance actually did and pulled off and had success with. They're like, damn it. Like, we could have. Yeah.

Damn it. Yeah. We could have done it. That was there for us to do that. I think so. I hope so. That's certainly a lesson I took from it. And I hope that studios are paying attention to this, that there is appetite for stories about the ways that being a woman can be horrific. And you can make a body horror movie about that, whether it's about aging or about motherhood, that there is...

real interest and energy around that if it's done well and if it's sharp. And The Substance stays pretty sharp most of the time. And Night Bitch, I thought they just really sanded down places that if they had done what Rachel Yoder does in the book would have been like, the ending of the book is so weird. And if you leave a movie experience with a like, oh my God, I can't believe they did that. It's really memorable. But the ending of the film is pretty forgettable.

Yeah, it seemed like they pulled the punch a little bit and they didn't, I don't think they need to. And I hope other, like I was thinking about like, I don't, you know, this is not really my lane necessarily, but like, look, you know, listening to you talk about the blob, right? Or is it blob? Maggie? It's not the blob. It's just blob, right? Oh, it's just blob. Just blob. The Maggie Sue. The Maggie Sue. Like, yeah.

I wonder if someone's optioned. I'm sure that book has been optioned because most interesting things do get optioned. And they look at the substance and they look at Blob and like, I wonder if there's something we can... I mean, it sounds like this one's a little more comic. It's not nearly as...

Yes. I don't know. Yeah. The book is a little more comic. Yeah. It's like it goes to some of those like horror adjacent places, but it has a really good sense of humor about it. Like I think the right actor with the right who can strike the right tone. Because the main character is younger, right? Younger? Yeah. Yeah. Like in her early 20s. And as the blob becomes a man, he would need a certain...

like bearing and a little twinkle in his eye, I think. That would be really interesting. But yeah, I think don't pull your punches. Like let it, if it's weird, let it make it weird. If it's gross, let it be gross. Or it can work, right? I mean, sometimes you be more conservative if you think you've got something. Like you almost have loss aversion pre, like maybe they think they had something. We've got all these other pieces. We don't need like, let's take the risk off the board. And I think for a movie like this, in most movies that have feature film, a catty moored pretensions,

Again, unless you get Chalamet doing Dylan, but that's also a swing. Like I think when they pitch that, you're like, I'm not sure this is going to work. This could be a disaster. Like whatever it is about that thing, lean into that thing. Because if it doesn't work, it's not going to matter anyway if you don't do it. So anyway, I was just kind of looking at some of the other contenders there. Yeah, Wicked's an interesting case of screenplay. My daughter had seen it pretty recently. Michelle had too. And so I was kind of thinking about

you know, what's the case for not adapt adaptation here. I think there's a little bit, and it sounds like Amelia Perez is too. Is it, what's an adaptation of, is that attention to the musical or is that adaptation of the book? Yeah. Cause as a movie from what I'm, I've seen wicked a couple of times, it's pretty straight up. Like there's not a lot different. And I, I think probably you're like, okay, they took the musical and put it on film. Great. Um,

But I'm not sure that's the best screenplay for adaptation. Right. And like the screenplay has to stand on its own with the assumption that folks don't know the original. I also think the story of Wicked is secondary. I mean, I've thought this since... I mean, I may have said this on the show before. Like you're there for Glinda and Elphaba and the songs. Like if you did have any story and you just had those little scenes, I think the movie is 80% as good because the stuff about...

who what's going on and there's a lot of stuff that's super convenient i'm very curious to see what it was the second part because anyway the story is strange and i'm not people aren't there because like oh what's gonna happen next right the non-singing parts are there just to get to the next singing part yeah which is how musicals work which is fine which is which is fine i had a great time at the movies and they're terrific in it but as a work of screen playing at least from my jaundiced and

Unpracticed eye. I'm not like. Wow. I can't believe they made that into a movie. Because that's almost exactly what I saw on the stage. Yeah.

Yeah, and I've heard some similar rumblings about like, what if it won Best Picture? Or like, John M. Chu is nominated for Best Director for like, what are we doing here when there are all of these other possibilities? That folks, I think it was Sean Fennessey over at The Ringer was like, basically that he was going to walk into the sea if John Chu won for Best Director among this field. I mean, I can, whatever, everyone's their own opinion. I think how...

If you've seen a bad musical adaptation, you know how bad this can go. Yeah. It's a big swing. And this is a wild... I mean, they spent all the dollars on it. It could have looked so bad. I mean, I know some people don't like the color grading, whatever. That's fine. I think that's more about aesthetics than it's about, I don't know, intrinsic value.

But like the thing, like the musical numbers worked. Like it looked great. It was fun. Like when they're singing, when she's singing The Wizard and I, you're like, I don't, wouldn't rather be anywhere else in the world in this moment. It's like, and that's not true with all musicals for sure. It's the most accomplished musical since what? Chicago? Like pretty clearly. So like even the great Steven Spielberg made a really credible, interesting adaptation of West Side Story and no one gave a shit.

Right. That's true. So anyway, I thought for a little bit that we might have needed to have Rowan on here to talk about the wild robot because I thought there was a shot for the wild robot to get best adapted screenplay. But that's tough for an animated film. If it were on here and I had a vote again, I've seen it and I've I've done the book with the kids. It's terrific.

I mean, it's just, it really is a terrific adaptation. Five Alarm's not bomb, especially if you've got kids or, you know, have had kids or whatever. But yeah, as a work of adaptation, I think animation too, it's a little bit like musicals or, what was I thinking? With the Chalamet or with the Coleman Domingo, like sometimes it's like, is it the actor or not? But this one, it's like the visuals override how good the screenplay is. Like animation,

To my mind, Pixar should have multiple best original screenplays already. I don't think they have one at this point. Interesting. But this one really could. Like I saw War of the Rohirrim with Ames, which was an anime version of the Tolkien story.

And it was wildly inert. You know, it's like it can really go sideways. And I think some of it is story, frankly. Yeah. And it's underappreciated. I mean, it's underappreciated with all movies, what the writers do. So whatever, that's going on already. But I thought The Wild Robot was a wonderful achievement. I thought a better adaptation as a movie-going experience in Conclave. But you've got to want to do it that way. I'm taking the book with me for jet lag reading. Mm-hmm.

next week and I'll wait until I get home to watch the movie so I can see it on a big screen yeah all right we can end it there choose an email podcast at book right dot com slash listen we did 2025 adaptation look aheads and I don't remember a single thing we talked about not not one thing the interesting ones are still later in the spring the amateur starring Rami Malek that

that's a big one. And then Mickey 17, the Robert Pattinson sci-fi directed by Bong Joon-ho is the other really big adaptation. The tracking on that's so bad. I think the narrative is going to be that it's a bust. It costs like $200 million to make. It's going to make $18 million. Yikes.

I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to a Shinsky date night for the amateur. Give me some You Killed My Wife, I'm Coming For You vibes. Yeah, it's a feature. I've seen the trailer at the theater several times now. It's possible it might be that situation where they're telling the whole story in the trailer. But we'll see. I mean, I think we were talking about this. Maybe we were on that show. I was like, yeah, give me X...

average profession becomes a revenge assassin. Like a doctor, architects, think of what the architects to do to you. You know, plumber. And he's using his brain to enact his revenge. Like this is a higher degree of difficulty than guy has a gun and, and goes for it. So I'm looking forward to that.

Or I did see that one. Oh, no, I haven't seen that. I'm looking forward to that one. I've seen the trailer several times. And then I think summer and fall are really when we'll pick up adaptation news. But we are still in the after effects of the writers and actor strikes from a few years ago. So it's a little on the slow side. If you had to revenge murder someone using your job skills, what do you think? Yeah.

I don't know. Revenge murdering by blog post is pretty tough. Very tough. I could probably get some people's wives to be really mad at them based on what I found out from their internet histories. That's interesting. Yeah. We need some kind of subliminal messaging. We need one of those. I just saw Captain America. People listen to pods and getting weird...

Transmissions into their ear holes. We would need technologies that we don't have access to to be able to turn our jobs into good revenge seeking. I have a very particular set of skills. Yeah. And really, it's the other person's set of skills we'd be using, not ours. Right.

Okay. Well, that's good. Everyone in my life is safe. It's like, you know what? I can piss Joff off as much as I want because there's no spreadsheet in the world going to kill me. Right. Yeah. Email us and tell us who had the best cowardly vote for a thing. Yeah, that's right. Let's go through, I guess, at the end because I got a little jumbled in the middle. Why don't you do yours five to one?

Okay, so my five was Emilia Perez. I gave it 2%. I gave A Complete Unknown 8%. Sing Sing was my third at 19%. Conclave at 20%. And then my big swing, Nickel Boys at 51%. I had Emilia Perez at zero. Goose egg for Emilia Perez. Sing Sing at 10%. Nickel Boys at 22%. Then I had Conclave at 33%. And A Complete Unknown at 34%.

That adds up to 99%. I could have given it somewhere else, but you know what? I'm not giving one to Amelia Perez. I'm not doing it. I'm not changing the others. Okay. I respect your choice. So I guess according to this, there's a 1% chance of no award. That's what I'm saying right here. Okay. Like, you know, we've had a year of no Pulitzer. Maybe there's no...

Does that ever happen with the Oscars? I've never heard of. We just didn't give it to anybody. People will refuse the award. But to my knowledge, there has never been a no award situation. I don't think so either. I think that's inimical to the idea. These are publicity devices. That's true. More than anything there. And if you're looking at Ladbrokes, one of these online gambling places, use Rebecca's picks because she knows more about this, seen more of them. If you're looking to drop a couple of quid on internet culture gambling-

Do not blame me if you bet money on the internet. I didn't say blame Rebecca, I said do not use mine. All right, Rebecca, we'll talk to you later. Thanks so much for listening today. Now please enjoy this excerpt from the audiobook of The Scorpion Queen by Nina Fears, read by Sandra Okoboyejo. A girl of my age was to be like the dawn, blooming and bright. At 16, I was supposed to be at a beginning, looking with hopeful impatience toward my future.

Marriage and motherhood and the warmth of a home. But not me. Ruined, my parents told me again and again. So young and your life is already over. When my father and mother said I was ruined, I knew that what they really meant was polluted or poisoned. I was a disappointment through and through. A sickly animal that must be cast out for the sake of the herd. A dead branch to be pruned.

In their desperation to be rid of me, they sent me away to work in the Emperor's court. And my very first day in the palace was an execution day. I couldn't help but see it as a bad omen, further proof of my parents' conviction that I was a blight who would always sour her surroundings. That day I was busy, with many tasks to distract myself from my dark thoughts.

I had spent the morning in the palace with the other servants, preparing the emperor's daughter, Mariam Akita, for the day's event by plaiting her hair into a dozen waist-length braids, darkening her lips with red ochre and tracing her eyelids with coal. Upon the princess's cheeks and forehead, we dabbed small quantities of date oil. For the improvement of her highness's skin, explained Penda, another chambermaid.

Then we dressed her in a wrapper of indigo brocade and fastened a series of carnelian bracelets around her wrists. You are going to be different here, I reminded myself as we worked. Braver, bolder, the sort of person willing to bend the rules to get what she wants. All my life, I had obediently done whatever my parents asked of me, hoping to one day make them proud.

For all my 16 years, I have been timid and compliant and eager to please. But that had never earned me my parents' love. I was never their favored daughter. That privilege had always belonged to my older sister, Hattie. I couldn't deny the prickles of envy that accompanied growing up alongside a sibling who moved so easily through life. Her good looks and quick wits never failing to make our parents shine with pride.

Although Hattie was more outspoken and less obedient than a daughter should be, her natural charm endeared her to them far more than my obedience ever had. But hidden beneath the surface of my sister's charm was a duplicitous streak, a talent for deceit. She could lie better than anyone I knew, and it was one of her falsehoods that had been my undoing, that had plucked me from the comfort of our parents' house.

In my old life, I'd had a maid of my own to dress me and bathe me. Now, I tried my best not to think of it as a degradation and to ignore the flashes of humiliation that passed through me as I worked. Just last month, I was Aminata Akit, the youngest daughter of one of the most successful salt merchants in the empire. I had been poised to marry into nobility, to a boy I loved, but that was all over now.

and every task I performed that morning felt like a punishment. A servant girl should always maintain a pleasant expression for the benefit of her employer, but I felt myself scowling with indignation instead. Luckily, Princess Miriyama was far too distraught to take notice. Slow, silent tears slid down her face as we draped her wrapper and pinned up her braids with gold and ivory hair ornaments, revealing the slender curve of her neck.

Penda held the princess's hand in comfort until she seized her weeping. When the princess crossed over to the windows to watch the crowd of spectators gathering in the market below, Jeniba, the third chambermaid, rolled her eyes. After 98 executions, it's a wonder that she still weeps at all, she whispered, her neat dark braids catching a golden triangle of late morning sunlight. Even with her permanent smirk, Jeniba was a striking girl,

with wide-set eyes, full lips, and a small and pointed chin. If she had been highborn, she might have had several eager suitors of her own. But she was only a servant, just like all the others, just like me. "Jen, for shame," Penta gasped. "What if she hears you?" Both girls turned to me expectantly, perhaps thinking I would join in their game of gently ridiculing the princess.

I'd met her personal attendants only that morning, but it was already clear that there was a pecking order among them. A reverend Janaba was the leader, while Penda, her sweet-natured friend, followed in her footsteps. An earlier me would have joked along with Janaba, submitting to her authority just as I had always been to the will of my parents. But I was determined to leave that person behind, and so I said nothing.

Then came a messenger to announce that it was noon, time for the three of us to escort the princess to the market square for the execution. Upon his only daughter's thirteenth birthday, Emperor Suleiman had issued a decree that any prince or nobleman who could pass his trials would be permitted to marry her, while all who failed were killed.