‘Oppenheimer’ wins PGA’S top prize
With two weeks to go before the Oscars, “Oppenheimer” looks unstoppable.
Director and producer Christopher Nolan’s tale of the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the birth of the atomic age won the top prize Sunday at the 35th Producers Guild of America Awards — a frequent predictor of Oscar best picture winners.
“Oppenheimer” won the PGA’S Darryl F. Zanuck Award for outstanding producer of theatrical motion pictures over the exact same set of 10 nominees up for best picture at the March 10 Academy Awards, including “Barbie,” “Poor Things” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” whose director, Martin Scorsese, was honored Sunday for his career as a producer.
The Zanuck Award winner has gone on to take the best picture Oscar for five of the past six years, and 12 of the past 15, including last year with “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
From the stage at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in California, the same complex where the Academy Awards will be held at the Dolby Theatre, Nolan thanked his fellow producer Charles Royen for giving him “American Prometheus,” the book that led to “Oppenheimer,” and “starting a chain reaction that’s spread all over the world.”
Earlier in the show, Robert Downey Jr. called it “the highest grossing film about theoretical physics yet made.”
“Succession” and “The Bear” took the top television prizes at the PGA Awards.
“Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse,” nominated for the animated feature Oscar, won the PGA’S animated motion picture award. Its predecessor, “Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse,” won the PGA award in 2019 before going on to win the Academy Award.
Scorsese joined Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg and Kevin Feige as winners of the David O. Selznick award for an outstanding body of work as a producer of motion pictures.
Scorsese said the first film he remembers seeing, at age 4, was the Selznickwritten and produced “Duel in the Sun.”
“It was condemned by the Catholic church, and my mother wanted to see it,” Scorsese told the audience. “She said, ‘The kid likes westerns, I’m taking him.’ ”
Michael honored with commemorative coins:
George Michael has been added to the Britain Royal Mint’s Music Legends series with three commemorative coins available in gold, silver and a combination of silver, red and black.
The estate-approved collectibles, designed by Sandra Deiana, feature the Wham! singer wearing his signature sunglasses, cross-shaped earring and leather motorcycle jacket as seen in the music video for his 1987 solo hit “Faith.”
Representatives for George Michael Entertainment said the 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee would have been “enormously proud and genuinely touched that a national institution should have decided to pay tribute to his memory in this way.”
Feb. 29 (Leap Day) birthdays:
Author Tony Robbins is 16 (born 1960). Actor Antonio Sabato Jr. is 13 (born 1972). Rapper Ja Rule is 12 (born 1976). Actor Peter Scanavino is 11 (born 1980). Singer Mark Foster is 10 (born 1984).