Jesse Eisenberg, Joseph Mazzello, The Social Network
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and author Ben Mezrich were the winners of the 2011 USC Scripter Award, given to the best film adaptation of a book. Sorkin’s screenplay for The Social Network is based on Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires.
Seventy-three films were eligible for the award this year. The other four nominees were: 127 Hours (Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy / book by Aron Ralston), The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski / book by Robert Harris), True Grit (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen / book by Charles Portis) and Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini / book by Daniel Woodrell).
In his acceptance speech at a ceremony held in downtown Los Angeles on Friday night (Feb. 4), Mezrich said that he hadn’t yet finished The Accidental Billionaires when he heard that Sorkin was already working on a film adaptation of his book. "It’s like getting hit by lightning," indieWIRE’s Anne Thompson quotes Mezrich as saying.
As an original work, David Seidler’s screenplay for The King’s Speech was ineligible for the USC Scripter Award.
Photo: The Social Network (Merrick Morton / Sony Pictures)