‘The Bikeriders’ Script to Compete for Original Screenplay Oscar, Despite Being Inspired by Danny Lyons Book (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comClayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Writer-director Jeff Nichols‘ “The Bikeriders,” with Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy, made a splash with festival-goers at the recent Telluride Film Festival.
20th Century Studios has revealed to Variety exclusively that the film will be campaigned for best original screenplay for the upcoming awards season, despite being inspired by the 1968 photo and interview book of the same name. “The Bikeriders” movie tells a fictional story inspired by the Midwestern motorcycle club in the book’s photos, seen through its members’ lives over a decade.
First published in 1968, the book by Danny Lyon explores his firsthand accounts of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club. Featuring black-and-white photographs and transcribed interviews conducted by Lyon from 1963 to 1967, the WGA has classified it as an original work rather than adapted. Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories. “This is the most complex script I’ve ever written,” says Nichols during an interview for an upcoming Variety Awards Circuit Podcast episode. “What I love is narrative structure.
It’s a book of photographs, and it has these interviews with these anecdotes. I placed those throughout [the script]. If that falls into one category or another, so be it.
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