The Writers Guild of America announced its nominees for best screenplay Wednesday in Los Angeles. The guild nominations are a good indicator for how Academy Award screenplay nominations might shake out next week.

A surprise nominee for original screenplay was "Best in Show," a spoof about prize-winning dogs by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. Other nominees for original screenplay were: "Almost Famous," the music memoir written by Cameron Crowe; the British dance flick "Billy Elliot" by Lee Hall; the legal drama "Erin Brockovich" by Susannah Grant; and "You Can Count On Me," a sibling-reunion tale by Kenneth Lonergan.

Nominated for best adapted screenplay were "Chocolat" by Robert Nelson Jacobs, based on Joanne Harris’ novel about an itinerant chocolatier; the Chinese martial-arts epic "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" by Wang Hui-Ling, James Schamus and Tsai Kuo Jung, based on Wang Du Lu’s book; the record-shop romance "High Fidelity" by D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, John Cusack and Scott Rosenberg, based on Nick Hornby’s novel; the drug-trade saga "Traffic" by Stephen Gaghan, based on a British TV miniseries; and the campus drama "Wonder Boys" by Steve Kloves, based on Michael Chabon’s novel.

The awards take place March 4.

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