American Fiction, Slow Horses bag major wins at USC Scripter Awards 2024

The 36th annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards honoured Cord Jefferson’s American Fictionas its outstanding film adaptation, providing a significant boost to the Oscar-nominated script ahead of next weekend’s Academy Awards. The ceremony, held at the University of Southern California’s Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library, also saw Apple TV+’s Slow Horseswinning in the episodic series category for a second consecutive year.

For those unaware, the Scripters recognise writers of the year’s most accomplished film and episodic TV series adaptations, as well as the writers of the works on which they are based. This year,the 2024 Scripter selection committee chose finalists from a pool of 80 film and 56 episodic series adaptations.

American Fiction, penned by Jefferson and based on Percival Everett’s novel Erasure, competed against two other Oscar nominees, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimerand Tony McNamara’s Poor Things, along with Ava DuVernay’s Originand Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

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Barbieand The Zone of Interestare two other adapted screenplays in the running for the Oscars this year.

Last year, Sarah Polley and Miriam Toews won the Scripter for Polley’s adaptation of Women Talking, which also went on to win the Adapted Screenplay Oscar.

In the episodic category, Will Smith and author Mick Herron won for Slow Horsesfor the second year in a row. They were nominated alongside Peter Morgan for The Crown, Scott Neustadter for Daisy Jones and the Six, Craig Mazin for The Last of Us, and Max Borenstein, Rodney Barnes, and Jim Hecht for Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.