The writers behind “Gone Girl,” “The Imitation Game,” “Inherent Vice,” “The Theory of Everything” and “Wild” will compete tonight for the USC Libraries Scripter Award.
Up for the 27th annual award are:
— Gillian Flynn, author and screenwriter of “Gone Girl”; — for “The Imitation Game,” author Andrew Hodges, who wrote the book “Alan Turing: The Enigma,” and screenwriter Graham Moore; — novelist Thomas Pynchon and screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson for “Inherent Vice”;
— Jane Hawking, author of “Travelling To Infinity: My Life With Stephen,” and screenwriter Anthony McCarten for “The Theory of Everything”; and
— screenwriter Nick Hornby for “Wild,” adapted from Cheryl Strayed’s memoir “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.”
The award will be handed out at a black-tie ceremony in the Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library at USC. Academy Award winners Helen Mirren and Taylor Hackford will serve as honorary dinner chairs.
Mystery and crime writer Walter Mosley, author of more than 40 books including the “Easy Rawlins” series, will receive the USC Libraries Literary Achievement Award. Mosley is working on a Broadway version of his novel “Devil in a Blue Dress,” which also was a 1995 movie starring Denzel Washington.
The Friends of the USC Libraries established the award in 1988. Previous winners include the screenwriters and authors of “12 Years a Slave,” “The Social Network,” “A Beautiful Mind” and “The English Patient.”
Chaired by USC professor and vice president of the Writers Guild of America, West, Howard Rodman, the 2015 Scripter selection committee selected the five finalists from a field of 97 eligible adaptations. Committee members include film critics Leonard Maltin, Anne Thompson and Kenneth Turan; authors Michael Chabon, Michael Ondaatje and Mona Simpson; screenwriters John Ridley, Erin Cressida Wilson and Steve Zaillian; and USC deans Elizabeth Daley of the School of Cinematic Arts, Madeline Puzo of the School of Dramatic Arts and Catherine Quinlan of the USC Libraries.
