With the Academy Awards coming up later this month — the ceremony is set for Sunday, Feb. 26 — and the Writers Guild Awards just around the corner this Sunday, Feb. 19, the filmmakers behind many of the awards season’s most acclaimed and heavily nominated pictures gathered for the Beyond Words panel discussion, an annual tradition hosted by the WGA West and Variety at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills.
Most of the top Oscar contenders were represented. On hand to tell the stories behind their projects — including dishing on the worst notes they received — were Damien Chazelle (“La La Land”), Eric Heisserer (“Arrival”), Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”), Kenneth Lonergan (“Manchester by the Sea”), Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (“Deadpool”), Todd Black (producer of “Fences,” written by the late August Wilson), Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi (“Hidden Figures”) and Taylor Sheridan (“Hell or High Water”).
TVWeek Open Mic writer Hillary Atkin filed an in-depth report presenting many of the highlights — please click here to read what the year’s hottest filmmakers have to say.