Sunday evening, the Producers Guild of America will have a private gathering, not open to the public, where they will announce their winners for this year’s best in three film categories. Those results could have ripple effects not just for Academy voters, but across the blogosphere with the results being a telegraph of the upcoming Best Picture contest winner. 2006 was the last time a film won here and didn’t win Best Picture. That ended a three-year streak of failure to match. Before that, 2001, 1998 and 1992 were the only mismatches. Out of 24 years, missing only 6 times is pretty impressive.

Animated Feature has only been given 8 times, but they’ve missed three times which doesn’t make them very valuable predicting that category. The documentary prize has been given out even less often, since 2007. 3 out of 6 times is an even worse record. Of course, since there’s 0 connection between Documentary Feature and at the Oscars, that will be 3 of 7 this year.

PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA AWARDS

Best Picture

American Hustle
Blue Jasmine
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity (Tripp, RU:Wesley, RU:Peter)
Her
Nebraska
Saving Mr. Banks
12 Years a Slave (Wesley, Peter, RU:Tripp)
The Wolf of Wall Street

Wesley Lovell: As much as I want to say this is between 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle, the PGA is much more in tune with what makes good profit. Neither of those two films have been excessively successful, though they’ve been successful enough. Yet, they are a fairly good predictor of Best Picture. So, I give the edge to 12 Years a Slave with Gravity a possible and likely surprise winner.
Peter J. Patrick: Could be either, but I’ll stick with 12 Years a Slave, my prediction for just about every other award this year.
Tripp Burton: The three-way race for Best Picture heats up here, but I could see slight upset with Gravity taking this. It is an amazing technical achievement, as well as the most financially successful of the three films fighting it out, and it might win here over perceived front-runner 12 Years a Slave.

Best Animated Feature

The Croods
Despicable Me 2 (RU:Wesley, RU:Tripp)
Epic
Frozen (Wesley, Peter, Tripp)
Monsters University

Wesley Lovell: There is no more successful film in this list than Frozen. It is the year’s anointed Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, so should have little trouble picking up this prize.
Peter J. Patrick: This one’s a no-brainer.
Tripp Burton: No real contest here.

Best Documentary

A Place at the Table (Peter)
Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story
Life According to Sam
We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (Wesley, Tripp)
Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? (RU:Wesley, RU:Peter, RU:Tripp)

Wesley Lovell: None of these are Oscar nominees and I don’t feel that confident predicting this as it could be almost any of these.
Peter J. Patrick: A coin toss on this one gives the award to A Place at the Table.
Tripp Burton: Without many of the big documentaries of the year here, this contest is really up for grabs. I’m betting on Alex Gibney, the most known of the filmmakers here.