PGA awards Little Miss Sunshine top feature film

By M&C Movie News Jan 21, 2007, 12:53 GMT

The film follows a family making a trip across country in a VW bus in order to get their young daughter to a beauty pageant.   ...more

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) dares to be different.

In its awards ceremonies Saturday night, January 20, the 3,300 members voted to present the best feature film award to ‘Little Miss Sunshine.’

Sunshine won out over ‘The Departed,’ ‘Dreamgirls,’ ‘Babel,’ and ‘The Queen.’

The Darryl F. Zanuck trophy was presented by Tom Cruise to Sunshine producers Marc Turtletaub, David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger & Ron Yerxa.

In his acceptance speech, Turtletaub singled out Michael Arndt's screenplay and said the key scene in making him decide to back the project came when he read about the grandfather advising his grandson to have sex with a lot of women -- "I mean, like a thousand."

"Thank you Michael," he added. "Without your wonderful screenplay, with equal parts of humor, heart and wisdom, none of us would be here tonight."

PGA winner has matched Best Picture Oscar ® 11 times in the past 17 years.

The win for Sunshine now has odds split between an Oscar win for it, ‘Babel’ and ‘Dreamgirls,’ which each won Golden Globes.

For the second year, the PGA presented an animated feature award – this year to Disny-Pixar’s ‘Cars’ which won over ‘Flushed Away,’ ‘Ice Age: The meltdown,’ and ‘Monster House.’

Previously announced awards included Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher with the David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures, the Kramer award to the producers of "An Inconvenient Truth," Jerry Bruckheimer with the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television, Vanguard Award presented to Will Wright, while the concert producer Ken Ehrlich was presented with the Visionary Award.

Following is a full list of winners:

FILM

"Little Miss Sunshine," (Fox Searchlight) Marc Turtletaub, David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger & Ron Yerxa

ANIMATED FILM

"Cars,"(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar Animation) Darla K. Anderson

LONG-FORM TELEVISION

"Elizabeth I," (HBO) Suzan Harrison, George Faber, Charles Pattinson, Barney Riesz

EPISODIC TELEVISION DRAMA

"Grey's Anatomy," Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers, Mark Gordon, James Parriott, Peter Horton, Rob Corn

EPISODIC TELEVISION COMEDY

"The Office," Greg Daniels, Kent Zbornak

VARIETY TELEVISION

"Real Time with Bill Maher," Bill Maher, Scott Carter, Sheila Griffiths, Dean Johnsen

NON-FICTION TELEVISION

"60 Minutes," Jeff Fager