The USC Libraries named the finalists for the 35th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards, which honor the writers of the year’s most accomplished film and episodic series adaptations, as well as the writers of the works on which they are based.
The finalist writers for film adaptation are, in alphabetical order by film title:
- Guillermo del Toro, Patrick McHale, and Matthew Robbins for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio based on the fairy tale “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi
- Kazuo Ishiguro for Living based on the novella “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Leo Tolstoy
- Rebecca Lenkiewicz for She Said based on the nonfiction book “She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement” by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
- Peter Craig, Ehren Kruger, Justin Marks, Christopher McQuarrie, and Eric Warren for Top Gun: Maverick based on characters from the 1983 California magazine article “Top Guns” by Ehud Yonay
- Screenwriter Sarah Polley and novelist Miriam Toews for Women Talking, based on the book of the same title
The finalist writers for episodic series are, in alphabetical order by series title:
- Peter Morgan, for the episode “Couple 31,” from The Crown, based on his stage play “The Audience”
- Taffy Brodesser-Akner for the episode “The Liver,” from Fleishman Is in Trouble, based on her book of the same name
- Will Smith for the episode “Failure’s Contagious,” from Slow Horses, based on the novel by Mick Herron
- J. T. Rogers for the episode “Yoshino” from Tokyo Vice, based on the memoir “Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan” by Jake Adelstein
- Dustin Lance Black for the episode “When God Was Love,” from Under the Banner of Heaven based on the nonfiction work by Jon Krakauer
The 2023 Scripter selection committee selected the finalists from a field of 101 film and 67 television adaptations. Howard Rodman, USC professor and past president of the Writers Guild of America, West, chairs the 2023 committee.
Serving on the selection committee, among many others, are film critics Leonard Maltin and Anne Thompson; authors Walter Mosley and Michael Ondaatje; and screenwriters Eric Roth and Erin Cressida Wilson.
The studios distributing the finalist films and current publishers of the printed works are:
- Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio—Netflix and Penguin Classics
- Living—Sony Pictures Classics and Penguin Classics
- She Said—Universal Pictures and Penguin Press
- Top Gun: Maverick—Paramount Pictures and “California” magazine
- Women Talking—Orion/MGM and Bloomsbury
The networks and streaming platforms broadcasting the finalist episodic series and current publishers of the printed works are:
- The Crown—Netflix and Dramatists Play Service Inc.
- Fleishman is in Trouble—FX and Random House
- Slow Horses—Apple TV+ and Soho Crime
- Tokyo Vice—HBO Max and Knopf Doubleday
- Under the Banner of Heaven—FX and Anchor Books
The USC Libraries will announce the winning authors and screenwriters at a black-tie ceremony on Saturday, Mar. 4, 2023, in the historic Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library at the University of Southern California. After being held in a virtual format the past two years amid the continuing coronavirus pandemic, the Scripter Awards are returning to an in-person event subject to up-to-date COVID-19 safety protocols.
Since 1988, Scripter has honored the authors of printed works alongside the screenwriters who adapt their stories. In 2016, the USC Libraries inaugurated a new Scripter award, for episodic series adaptation.
