Movies vying for notice for their art direction only have one shot on Oscar night, given that Best Art Direction is one category with five nominees. But when production designers get a chance to honor their own, they spread their love around, with three separate categories for period films, fantasy films and contemporary films.
And that's how Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Dark Knight all walked away winners at the Art Directors Guild Awards last night. THR reported the winners, and also noticed that George Lucas, of all people, was given an honorary award.
As far as predicting the Oscars based on these awards, good luck-- Slumdog isn't even nominated, and every other nominees other than The Dark Knight is a period film, which means Benjamin Button will have some competition from Academy members who just love a perfectly recreated time period. I'll be getting around to the final Oscar Eye predictions later this week, but lets just say the Art Direction category seems anything but settled at this point.
