This afternoon, the Producers Guild announced its nominees for Best Picture: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire and … The Dark Knight. With the first four films widely seen as Academy Award–nod locks, Knight's inclusion should give a boost to Batfans who've seen their movie get shut out at other important pre-Oscar awards despite a crack grassroots campaign. Though PGA winners have gone on to win Best Picture statues an impressive twelve times in the awards' nineteen-year history, notes L.A. Times Oscarologist Tom O'Neil, they have only a 76 percent success rate at predicting Academy Award nominations in the top category, meaning that one of their picks is statistically likely to get screwed on February 2 (and we doubt it'll be Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, or Slumdog Millionaire).

Producers Guild of America nominations = Oscars' front-runners [Gold Derby/LAT]