23rd annual USC Libraries Scripter Award winners - Sorkin, Mezrich, Lehane

Tonight at the at the Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library on the USC campus, the USC Libraries held an awards banquet to present their 23rd annual Scripter Awards,
given to film adaptations and presented to both the screenwriter and the author of the original work. The evening was hosted by Nancy Sinatra. DGA President, filmmaker and USC alumnus Taylor Hackford (‘67, International Relations) and his wife Academy Award-winning actress Helen Mirren served as honourary dinner chairs.

To nobody's surprise, the Scripter Awards went to the writers of The Social Network, screenwriter
 Aaron Sorkin and Ben Mezrich, author of the book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal.” I've mentioned before that this is not a true adaptation, that the screenplay for The Social Network was written concurrently with the book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal” and  Sorkin claims he didn't consult it.

The other finalists had been the writers for The Ghost Writer, 127 Hours, True Grit and Winter's Bone. They were chosen from 73 eligible scripts. Leonard Maltin introduced the films and their writers with a clip that showed a portion of the book followed by a scene from the resulting movie. He then announced the winning team.

The 2010 Scripter Literary Achievement Award went to Dennis Lehane, who unfortunately wasn't able to attend. He wrote the original novels that became the films Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone and Shutter Island and previously won a Scripter Award in 2004 for Mystic River. He now teaches at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida.

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23rd-annual USC Libraries Scripter Award Selection Committee

Naomi Foner, Chair
Barbara Benedek
Albert Berger
Robert Bloomingdale
Allan Burns
Michael Chabon
Julie Corman
Elizabeth Daley
David Denby
Dave Eggers
Jack Epps, Jr.
Daryle Ann Giardino
Myla Goldberg
Robert Greenwald
David Hare
Ed Harris
Grant Heslov
Amy Holden Jones
Gale Anne Hurd
Erik Jendresen
Lawrence Kasdan
Nicholas Kazan
Callie Khouri
Karey Kirkpatrick
Hawk Koch
David Koepp
Tony Kushner
Richard LaGravenese
Claudia Lewis
Leonard Maltin
Mike Medavoy
Gail Mutrux
Michael Ondaatje
Richard Pearce
Michael Peretzian
Madeline Puzo
Catherine Quinlan
Peter Rainer
Peter Rice
Howard Rodman
Don Roos
Eric Roth
Tom Rothman
Peter Sarsgaard
Michelle Satter
Tom Schulman
Brad Simpson
Jocelyn Hayes Simpson
Glenn A. Sonnenberg
Martha Sosa
Wesley Strick
Robin Swicord
Anne Thompson
Jennifer Todd
Suzanne Todd
Kenneth Turan
Ayelet Waldman
Erin Cressida Wilson
Steven Zaillian