PGA Award Goes for The King’s Speech!

The Producers Guild of America, one of the most reliable guilds when it comes to predicting Oscar success, threw a major surprise into the awards race by giving its top honor to "The King's Speech" at the 22nd Annual Producers Guild Awards on Saturday night.

"The Social Network" had been considered the strong favorite to win yet another award.

The PGA’s awards for animated and documentary films went to "Toy Story 3" and "Waiting for 'Superman,'" respectively. "Modern Family" and "Mad Men" won for television comedy and drama.

The last three Producers Guild winners – “The Hurt Locker,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “No Country for Old Men” – have gone on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. In the 21-year history of the awards, two-thirds of PGA winners have won the Oscar.

When the PGA expanded its own Best Picture category from five to 10 nominees to match the Academy’s expansion in 2009, it also changed its voting process in that category to the preferential system used by AMPAS. This makes it the only guild to not only have the same sized field as the Oscars, but also to tally votes in the same way, in which a film must be a consensus favorite in order to win.

Last year’s PGA win for “The Hurt Locker” was a strong sign that “Avatar” was losing momentum, and could be vulnerable under a preferential system.

This year’s PGA ceremony took place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and was hosted by producer/director/writer Judd Apatow.