Edgar Wright Predicted ‘Baby Driver’ Oscar Noms In 2014, Won Awards Bet With Kumail Nanjiani
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The nominations for the90th Academy Awardswere announced earlier this week, and whileEdgar Wright’s music-driven heist filmBaby Driverdidn’t end up with any nods in the major categories, the film did end up with a few technical awards, including Best Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Design. That’s certainly a great honor, and it’s exactly what Edgar Wright predicted would happen in one of his earliest drafts of the script.
And that’s not all of the awards-related good luck Edgar Wright has found this week. The filmmaker happened to make a bet a little while back withThe Big Sickco-writer and starKumail Nanjianiabout the romantic comedy getting nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Since the film indeed ended up with a nomination in that category, Wright won the bet. So what does Nanjiani have to do? Find out below.
First up, here’s Edgar Wright chiming in with evidence of predicting theBaby DriverOscar nominations:
Okay, this is spooky. My producer Nira Park just resent me my 2nd draft of ‘Baby Driver’ from 2014. And check out my directors statement on Page 2. A premonition no less!pic.twitter.com/UGfCO3HMH9
— edgarwright (@edgarwright)June 21, 2025
The important part of Edagr Wright’s note at the beginning of the second draft ofBaby Driversays, “This is a movie about someone who cannot function without music, so this screenplay is just the road map to a film which should, at the very least, be nominated for one of the sound categories at the 2016 Oscars. I don’t mind which.” And here we are withBaby Drivergetting a nomination inbothsound categories, which is pretty damn awesome.
That’s not the only time Edgar Wright made such a prediction either, as the filmmaker explained:
And finally, my sound wizard Julian Slater reminded me (I had forgotten this) that in 2015 after a screening of ‘Pride’ in Beverly Hills, I ran into him and said a) Baby Driver was definitely happening and b) he was going to get nominated for his Sound work. Call me Nostra-Edgar.
It should be noted that this isn’t Edgar Wright being cocky about the film, but moreso illustrating how important sound was going to be in the movie and how much meticulous attention was going to be paid to that element of the film because of how important the idea of hearing was in the movie. And the hard work has clearly paid off.
Kumail Nanjiani Loses a Bet to Edgar Wright
As we said in the opening, Edgar Wright also found luck this week by winning a bet he made with comedian turned screenwriter Kumail Nanjiani. The autobiographical romantic comedy landed a nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and Wright again showed off his premonition skills by making another Oscar nomination prediction:
And also I told@kumailnthat he and@emilyvgordonwould get a best screenplay nomination and that if I was right, he had to eat a bowl of brussel sprouts.
Kumail Nanjiani corroborated this bet, and as a man of his word, said he would follow through:
Unfortunately, Kumail was reportedly too busy yesterday to follow through on this promise:
Update:@kumailndid not eat a bowl of Brussels sprouts last night. Apparently he was ‘filming Silicon Valley until late’. A likely story.
— edgarwright (@edgarwright)June 25, 2025
As of now, there hasn’t been a video uploaded of Nanjiani eating a bowl of brussel sprouts, but I imagine he was also busy yesterday being on cloud nine after receiving his first Oscar nomination for a movie that was purely a labor of love. And sinceBaby Driverwas also one of those special kind of projects for Edgar Wright, we couldn’t be happier for these two filmmakers to be enjoying their success in such a delightful manner.
We’ll see if they come away with wins in their respective categories when the Oscars air onMarch 4, 2018.
UPDATE: Kumail Nanjiani has followed through on this bet and Edgar Wright documented it:
I love Brussels Sprouts. Mr@kumailndoes not. Last year I said he and@emilyvgordonwould be nominated for Original Screenplay at the 2018 Oscars and that if I was right he had to eat a bowl of sprouts. So last night we celebrated with that classic combo: champagne and sprouts.pic.twitter.com/7bHRaMa0tD
— edgarwright (@edgarwright)July 21, 2025
Baby Driverisnow available on Blu-ray and DVD, and you can buyThe Big Sickright now too.
