Hurt Locker and Up in the Air Grab Writers Guild of America Awards, Clear Faves for Oscar

No surprises at the WGA’s – as Oscar front-runners The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air won in their respective categories for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay. Mark Boal’s work beat out “500 Days of Summer,” “Avatar,” “The Hangover” and my favorite original screenplay of the year in “A Serious Man” while Jason Reitman will have to consider getting an award speech strategy ready for Oscar night, as he and Sheldon Turner have even better odds in their category. For the WGA, they bet out “Crazy Heart,” “Julie and Julia,” “Precious” and “Star Trek.”

Oscar night, Up in the Air is going up against dark horse favorite In the Loop, District 9, An Education and is once again facing off against Precious. Hurt Locker is going up against A Serious Man again, and won’t find much of a threat from Inglourious Basterds, The Messenger and Pixar’s Up.

Variety pulled out some recent stats good for Oscar poolers to know: winners of original screenplay trophies have matched in 10 of the last 15 years, while the adapted screenplay awards have matched in 11 of the last 15 years.