Chicago wins awards from directors and producers guilds

Chicago remains the movie to beat this award season, having picked up two important pre-Oscar prizes over the weekend. Out director Rob Marshall, who made his feature debut with Chicago, won the Directors Guild of America award Saturday for his work on the film. The DGA award is historically significant for Oscar-watchers, because only five times since the DGA award's inception has the winning director failed to also win an Academy Award. (Ironically, one of those times was in 1972, when Francis Ford Coppola was honored by the guild for The Godfather, only to see that year's Best Director Oscar go to Cabaret director Bob Fosse, who would go on to cocreate the stage play of Chicago.) One day after the DGA win, Chicago also scored the Producers Guild of America Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award for theatrical motion pictures for Martin Richards.