The Lost Daughter and Dopesick took top honors at the 34th annual — and second virtual — USC Libraries Scripter Awards on Saturday night.
The Scripter Awards celebrate the best printed-word-to-screen adaptations. Both authors and screenwriters were celebrated. Therefore, The Lost Daughter screenwriter Maggie Gyllenhaal and Elena Ferrante, the author of the novel of the same name, shared the film award, and the TV award went to both Danny Strong, who wrote the “The People vs. Purdue Pharma” episode of Dopesick, and Beth Macy for the nonfiction book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company That Addicted America that inspired the drama series.
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The other film nominees were:
- Dune (screenwriters Eric Roth, Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve), based on the novel of the same name (author Frank Herbert)
- Passing (screenwriter Rebecca Hall), based on the novel of the same name (author Nella Larsen)
- The Power of the Dog (screenwriter Jane Campion), based on the novel of the same name (author Thomas Savage)
- The Tragedy of Macbeth (screenwriter Joel Coen), based on the play Macbeth (playwright William Shakespeare)
Meanwhile, the other nominees for the episodic TV Scripter Award (which was only introduced in 2016), were:
- Maid episode “Dollar Store” (writer Molly Smith Metzler), based on the memoir Maid: Hard Work, Loy Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive (author Stephanie Land)
- Station Eleven episode “Wheel of Fire” (writer Patrick Somerville), based on the novel Station Eleven (author Emily St. John Mandel)
- The Underground Railroad episode “Indiana Winter” (writer Barry Jenkins), based on the novel The Underground Railroad (author Colson Whitehead)
- WandaVision episode “Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience” (writer Jac Schaeffer), based on Marvel Comics (characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)
Barry Jenkins, a past Scripter winner for Moonlight, past finalist for If Beale Street Could Talk and 2022 nominee for The Underground Railroad, was the inaugural recipient of the USC Libraries’ Literary Achievement Award for his contributions to cinematic storytelling.
The film Scripter Award and the best adapted screenplay Oscar have gone to the same project on 14 occasions over the past 33 years: Schindler’s List (1993), Sense and Sensibility (1995), L.A. Confidential (1997), A Beautiful Mind (2001), No Country for Old Men (2007), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), The Social Network (2010), The Descendants (2011), Argo (2012), 12 Years a Slave (2013), The Imitation Game (2014), The Big Short (2015), Moonlight (2016) and Call Me by Your Name (2017).
