Producer's Guild and Screen Actor's Guild: The Race is Wide Open

Move aside "Boyhood", we have a new frontrunner on our hands. 

If you thought that this year's Oscar race was getting a little boring (like me), then this weekend was exactly what you needed. After winning nearly every critic's prize and the Golden Globe, it seemed "Boyhood" was getting ready to steamroll its way to the Oscars. But with announcements from the Producer's Guild and the Screen Actor's Guild, its path just got a little more obscure.

"Birdman" surprisingly swooped in and picked up wins for Best Picture and Best Ensemble from both guilds. Perhaps, though, this isn't such a surprise as it was the leader in Oscar nominations (9) along with "The Grand Budapest Hotel". Its subject matter also plays right into the Academy wheelhouse (a fading actor trying to reclaim his career by launching an ambitious stage-adaptation).

To give you some statistics, you'd have to go back to 1992 to find a Best Picture nominee that won the PGA award but didn't win the Oscar for Best Picture. Last year, we had both "Gravity" and "12 Years A Slave" win in a previously unheard of tie, with 12 YAS going on to win the top prize, and Gravity winning the most awards out of every other nominated film.

On the SAG side, the ensemble award correlates less than the PGA's award. Films like "The Help", "Inglorious Basterds" and most recently, "American Hustle" have won, but lost out on Oscar's Best Picture prize. However, winners such as "The Artist", "The King's Speech" and "Argo" have all won. So it's not a definite thing, however, its nothing to turn your nose up at.

So as of right now, Birdman is our front runner, with Boyhood not so far behind, and running behind the both of them is Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper". Sniper boasts the best box office performance of all the other nominees, in only its second weekend of release. It managed some very serious nominations, including Actor, Screenplay and Editing, so for better or worse, its definitely a threat.

Predictably, Patricia Arquette, J.K. Simmons and Julianne Moore all won in their respective categories, so consider their wins etched in stone. But perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was Eddie Redmayne winning over Michael Keaton in the leading actor category. Keaton has been winning just about everything this year (save for a few critic's prizes), and Redmayne has only won the Drama Globe award (Keaton won over in the Comedy category). "Theory of Everything" did manage a nomination for its ensemble, so there's obvious love for the film and Redmayne by association.

This could be potentially problematic for Keaton, who has been the frontrunner all season. You'd have to go back all the way to 2003 when Johnny Depp won for "Pirates of the Caribbean" to find a Lead Actor winning the SAG award and not the Oscar. There's a few different scenarios that could play out here:

• Keaton could still win the Oscar
• Redmayne could win the Oscar
• Redmayne and Keaton could split and pave the way for Bradley Cooper to win

Any one of these scenarios is plausible. Make no mistake, Cooper is a serious threat given Sniper's reception from the general public and the Academy, and Cooper's own appeal. He's the only actor since Russell Crowe to manage three consecutive nominations in three years.

It's going to be interesting to see who wins with the Director's Guild. I could see Birdman in a King's Speech type of guild domination, but a lot of people love Richard Linklater, and honoring him may be their way of honoring Boyhood (outside of Patricia Arquette). And don't be surprised if there's a sudden surge for "Selma". Being the underdog has helped so many winning films in the past few years, and a lot of people are angry about its snubbing in the major categories. If Paramount plays this right, they can lead Selma to a well deserved win.

With less than a month away to the Oscars, it's good to see some excitement left in this incredibly dull race.