UPDATE (8:32 PM ET): Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 98th Academy Awards. The win matches Kalshi traders’ expectations heading into the ceremony, where the film was priced as a dominant favorite with a 96% chance of winning. Anderson’s screenplay, adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, had already picked up major honors earlier in awards season, including wins at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards, and Writers Guild Awards.
When it comes time to announce the winner for Best Adapted Screenplay at tonight’s 98th Academy Awards, traders seem remarkably confident about the outcome.
One Battle After Another is currently priced as the clear favorite at 96%, followed by Chloé Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell’s Hamnet at 4%, and Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar’s Train Dreams at 1%.
Best Adapted Screenplay
One Battle After Another writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson has been nominated for an Oscar 14 times, but has yet to win a single award. He was nominated for Best Adapted and Best Original Screenplay for films like Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, and Licorice Pizza.
One Battle After Another has already picked up some key awards for its writing. The movie won screenplay honors at the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Golden Globe, and the Writers Guild of America Awards.
Traders seem to think that trend will continue tonight.
Critical acclaim
One Battle After Another has also earned significant praise among critics for its writing. Anderson’s movie holds a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The AV Club’s Jesse Hassenger gave the film an A-. He also wrote that Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland “strikes a near-impossible balance” between its characters while presenting a sharp satire of “deranged white nationalism that has been on a re-emboldened march for the entire space this movie covers.”
The New Yorker’s Richard Brody praised Anderson’s script as one that “suppresses psychological complexity, creating characters who are little more than abstractions.” He also wrote that the film, “despite all its intensely realistic and viscerally physical action, is a work of grand symbolic design.”
Best Original Screenplay
Meanwhile, the adapted screenplay category isn’t the only one with a dominant favorite. Traders also see a clear leader in Kalshi’s Best Original Screenplay market.
Director Ryan Coogler’s horror hit Sinners is priced at 95%, followed by Marty Supreme at 3%, and Sentimental Value at 2%.
The 98th annual Academy Awards will air live starting at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on ABC. The Oscars will also stream on Hulu, YouTube TV, AT&T TV, and Fubo.
The takeaway
Kalshi markets now predict:
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