‘American Fiction’ And ‘Slow Horses’ Score Wins At USC Scripter Awards

The 36th annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards on Saturday named Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction its outstanding film adaptations, giving the Oscar-nominated script a boost leading into next weekend’s Academy Awards.

Apple TV+’s Slow Horses won in the episodic series category for a second year in a row during the ceremony tonight at the University of Southern California’s Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library.

The Scripters honor 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.

American Fiction, written by Jefferson based on the novel Percival Everett’s novel Erasure, was joined on tonight’s finalist list by two other Oscar nominees, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Tony McNamara’s Poor Things. Also nominated tonight were Ava DuVernay’s Origin and Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Barbie and The Zone of Interest are the other two adapted screenplays in the Oscar hunt this year.

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

Slow Horses scribe Will Smith and author Mick Herron won again in the episodic category after being nominated again this year 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.

The 2024 Scripter selection committee selected finalists from a field of 80 film and 56 episodic series adaptations.