LOS ANGELES — The Iran hostage-crisis thriller “Argo” has taken the top honor at the Producers Guild Awards. Ben Affleck and Grant Heslov received the award Saturday handed out at the Beverly Hilton Hotel by the Producers Guild of America, as “Argo” beat out nine other films, including the U.S. Civil War-set “Lincoln,” the musical “Les Miserables” and the Osama bin Laden thriller “Zero Dark Thirty.” Other contenders were the low-budget film “Beasts of the Southern Wild”; the slave-turned-bounty-hunter saga “Django Unchained”; the shipwreck story “Life of Pi”; the first-love tale “Moonrise Kingdom”; the lost-souls romance “Silver Linings Playbook”; and the James Bond adventure “Skyfall.” The big winner often goes on to claim the best-picture honor at the Academy Awards on Feb. 24. — AP
