Variety's 10 Screenwriters to Watch for 2023
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In a year in which evaluating the contributions of writers became a major point of contention across the entertainment industry, Variety is especially pleased to announce its list of 10 Screenwriters to Watch. Some among them are scribes whose work has already made waves — cultural as much as commercial — with others on the precipice of transforming this year’s awards season and the broader landscape of film for years to come. Though the Writer’s Strike prevented an in-person celebration of their considerable talents, we’re thrilled to present the screenwriting class of 2023, in print and online.
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Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum (“Dumb Money”)
“We’re a volume business,” jokes Angelo about her work with Schuker Blum, and despite the pair having just one produced screenplay thus far, she’s not kidding.
Beyond “Dumb Money,” the bicoastal scribes’ colorful, rousing chronicle of the too-odd-to-believe GameStop short squeeze of January 2021, they have written no fewer than six scripts that all figure to hit screens in the coming years.
The duo met as reporters for the Wall Street Journal, and that shoe-leather sensibility of their past professional lives is the foundation for their work.
“Internet populism is one of the dominant forces shaping our culture and world today,” says Schuker Blum.
Among their projects in the pipeline are a biopic of pioneering Hollywood agent Sue Mengers, starring Jennifer Lawrence; a TV series for Netflix with Adam McKay as writer-director; a re-imagination of “Murder, She Wrote”; and an adaptation of Michael Lewis’ pandemic story “The Premonition,” with Phil Lord and Chris Miller attached to direct.
Reps: Agency: CAA; Legal: Sloane Offer Weber & Dern
Influences: Aaron Sorkin, Charles Randolph, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron
— Brent Simon
Julian Breece (“Rustin”)
When Breece heard that a film was being made about Bayard Rustin, he knew he had to write it, having learned about the Civil Rights hero early in his life. “I was trying to find signs of life out there, looking up other Black queer people. I found out that this Black queer man not only worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. but introduced him to nonviolent resistance.”
He got the job on “Rustin” after a meeting with producer and co-screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, immediately moving to New York for research. “Most of the people who worked with Bayard and knew him personally lived in New York,” Breece says.
Armed with that research, he knew he wanted to center the film on the 1963 March on Washington. “I wanted to focus on the moment of his emotional journey where he stepped into his greatness.”
It was important for Breece to present Rustin, played by Colman Domingo, as a sexual being. “He was courageous … but he was still wounded in the same ways that we all are wounded, knowing that the way we love is looked at negatively.”
Reps: Agency: CAA; Management: Kevin Donahue; Legal: Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler, Feldman & Clark
Influences: Pedro Almodóvar, Lee Daniels, Steve McQueen
— Murtada Elfadl
Marcus Gardley (“The Color Purple”)
After a long interview process, poet, Obie Award-winning playwright and “The Chi” writer Gardley was selected to write the new adaptation of Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple,” a novel he read in one sitting at age 13.
“The language she uses is highly poetic, but it’s grounded. Humans, when pushed to our limits, our deeper innermost thoughts [can be] poetic — there is a terseness, there is a directness and then there’s a musicality,” Gardley says. “When I met Alice Walker, she said, ‘It makes sense that they would hire a poet.’”
That lyricism doesn’t stop with dialogue. Whether for stage or screen, Gardley’s stage directions flow with poetic imagery, too.
“The more specific you are, the less room they have to imagine,” he explains. “That’s what poetry really allows you to do, it allows you to imagine. It frees you up to see the colors and smell the world in a different way and feel the world in a different way.”
Gardley’s biggest challenge was bringing something new to the tale. To do that, he delved into Celie’s inner world. “She’s a quiet character, and she’s been abused,” he observes. “How do we get into her inner world? And what does that look like? Is there beauty there? Is there humor there? Is there magical realism there? That was my entree into it, and my pitch to producers.”
Gardley’s new projects include a film about Marvin Gaye currently in preproduction; a film adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s novel “The Children of Blood and Bone”; and a screenplay based on the music of Boyz II Men.
Reps: Agency: WME; Legal: Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein
Influences: Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple,” Toni Morrison’s “Sula,” James Baldwin’s “If Beale Street Could Talk”
— Paula Hendrickson
Rose Gilroy (“Project Artemis”)
Gilroy didn’t plan on joining the family business — her grandfather Frank (“The Subject Was Roses”), her uncle Tony (“Michael Clayton”) and her father Dan (“Nightcrawler”) have all earned acclaim for their writing.
“In my family, there was a lot of magic in stories, but I was not looking to get into anything cre- ative,” says Gilroy. Nonetheless, Apple Studios put $100 million into producing her “Project Artemis” script. Additionally, her wilderness thriller, “The Pack,” is in development with Alexander Skarsgård directing and starring alongside Florence Pugh.
In college, Gilroy was pre-med before switching to political science and psychology. “I got really into doing research, and once I had that foundation, I was able to come back around to writing,” she recalls. “I loved the idea of getting people invested in a narrative.”
Being raised by writers brought clarity. “I knew this doesn’t come easy and it isn’t glamorous — it’s hours in front of a computer and the first draft is going to suck,” she says. But growing up, Gilroy was endlessly fascinated by “weird news stories,” falling in love with a book “that had every shipwreck and how they happened — like the captain was drunk and accidentally lit a broom on fire.”
An article about the “dark side” of nature documentaries led to “The Pack”; the film explores “the gray area around the ethics involved.”
After being hired for the space race film “Project Artemis,” she again dove into the research, but Gilroy also learned not to be precious about her work. “I feel blessed everyone is working to protect the original vision,” she says, “but I write the best version, and whatever happens after that will happen.”
Reps: Agency: CAA; Management: Mosaic; Legal: Behr Abramson Levy Johnson
Influences: Aaron Sorkin, Jordan Peele
— Stuart Miller
Tasha Huo (“Red Sonja”)
After developing scripts for “Red Sonja,” “Naruto” and an animated version of “Tomb Raider,” Huo says she considers it a fan’s dream come true to adapt beloved properties. “Adapting iconic characters or IP makes the writing of it easier, because the passion for writing it is already there,” Huo says. “I’m so inspired by these characters already that it’s exciting to just take a part of their journey and try to tell that fun story in a way that would appeal to me as a fan.”
For “Red Sonja,” based on the popular sword and sorcery comic book character of the same name, Huo says that the character offers a unique opportunity to use the fantasy genre to explore human stories. “It gives you this great vehicle for telling big themes about human nature within the spectacle,” she says, promising stories of “great female friendship” and a portrait of “how women uniquely survive out in the world.”
Using genre and big spectacle to tell intimate human stories stems from a fandom of Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator,” a film she says was “big and fun” but also used filmmaking to explore deeper themes. “That is more than you can ever do in a novel.”
Next up for the writer is “Naruto,” a feature adaptation of the iconic anime for Lionsgate. She is also executive producing the animated series “Mighty Nein” for Amazon, as well as serving as showrunner on the “Tomb Raider” animated series for Netflix and Legendary. “Lara Croft doesn’t just go to a new temple each week but goes through a character-driven emotional story, and that excited me the most,” she says.
Reps: Agency: Gersh; Manage- ment: Michele Wolkoff; Legal: Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler, Feldman & Clark
Influences: Baz Luhrmann, J.J. Abrams, Mike Flanagan
— Rafael Motamayor
Justin Kuritzkes (“Challengers”)
With his first spec script “Challengers,” Kuritzkes has already succeeded in Hollywood beyond his expectations: it’s been turned into a film directed by Luca Guadagnino starring Zendaya. He says that starting his career as a play- wright and a novelist helped him cultivate the necessary skills to transition into screenwriting as “what you find out about yourself as a storyteller carries through.”
“Formally, they’re really different mediums,” says Kuritzkes. “A play or a novel comes more from a place of language. ‘Challengers’ came to me more as a relationship between characters and space — a geometry of characters on a tennis court.”
Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor all play tennis pros in the film, scheduled for release in 2024. Though “Challengers” revolves around a love triangle between the three characters, he says it’s ultimately a story about desire. “It’s about the importance of who you choose to spend your life with,
and how different your life can be depending on the choices you make.”
Kuritzkes is married to filmmaker-playwright Celine Song, whose own debut film, “Past Lives,” opened to acclaim earlier this year. He says they are “each other’s harshest critics and first readers.” With a follow-up collaboration already in the works with Guadagnino, an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novel “Queer” starring Daniel Craig, Kuritzkes hopes to receive many more first reads from her — and more criticism.
“Even if what’s at stake in the movie dramatically is something small or quotidian, the movie still has to make an argument that what is at stake is the most important thing in the world.”
Reps: Agency: CAA; Legal: Ziffren Brittenham
Influences: Stanley Kubrick, Lars von Trier, Mike Leigh
— Murtada Elfadl
Andrew Lopez (“CrushCrushCrush”)
Though he’s already launched a multifaceted career as a stand-up comedian and an actor on shows like “The Bear” and “Platonic,” budding screenwriter Lopez says he’s more interested in enjoying his Hollywood ride than strategizing where it will take him next. “I want to make my friends rich, and I want to have stories to tell my kids someday,” he says.
Growing up in Iowa, Lopez was one of the only people of color in his hometown, an experience that made him feel different but also “cool.” “I just dreamed really big, and I had really supportive parents and my town was really supportive, and I wanted to make movies.” He hopes to turn his experiences into a TV show, currently titled “Iowa” and produced by his “Bear” collaborators Christopher Storer, Josh Senior and Cooper Wehde. “It’s a love letter to small towns,” Lopez says of his script. “I basically wanted to do Richard Linklater on steroids.”
Upcoming projects also include romantic comedy “Slow Burn” at Amazon, and “CrushCrushCrush,” an original high-concept thriller set in the world of music that David Michôd (“Succession”) will direct. Never one to let go of his nerdy roots, Lopez hopes to develop a live-action feature based on anime as the genre continues to grow in popularity. As a huge fan himself, he argues that the key to anime adaptations is to go after relatively lesser-known titles.
“No one’s gonna be mad if you make a ’90s anime remake unless it’s something like, ‘Ghost in the Shell,’” he says. “You go after the unknown ones, so they don’t get mad — but then they’re impressed that you made the original better.”
Reps: Agency: CAA; Management: M88; Legal: Patti Felker and Jordan Rojas
Influences: Zach Bryan, Chris Storer, Brendan O’Brien
— Rafael Motamayor
Megan McDonnell (“The Marvels”)
McDonnell’s career started with a bang when she was hired to help produce John August and Craig Mazin’s “Scriptnotes” podcast. It was a good role to step into after earning her undergrad degree from Harvard and, subse- quently, an MFA though the Peter Stark producing program at USC. McDonnell transitioned from the podcast into a role as story editor on Disney+’s Marvel series“WandaVision,” which really kicked off her industry writing career.
“‘WandaVision’ was my first professional writing job, and it was the room of a lifetime,” she says. “Everyone was kind and hilarious and also genius — we had so much fun.”
McDonnell has remained in the Marvel Cinematic Universe ecosystem, becoming the first writer brought onto Nia DaCosta’s “The Marvels.” She also served as a consulting producer, providing writing and onset services for “Agatha: Darkhold Diaries.” These projects exemplify the nontraditional approach she likes to bring to boilerplate formats, be they sitcoms or superhero tentpoles. “I love to do something unusual with form. I aim to surprise,” she says. “And I try to write things that I want to watch.”
McDonnell has been busy writing for the Apple TV+ series “Dark Matter,” based on Blake Crouch’s 2016 novel, and Amazon’s “Tomb Raider.” McDonnell’s original script “Disordered” is also set at FX.
Despite her developing pedigree as a shepherd of familiar characters, McDonnell says she most frequently draws inspiration from her own life. “Most of my stories start with whatever funk or crisis or feeling I’m living in, then I figure out how to explore that through speculative fiction.”
Reps: Agency: Verve; Management: Good Fear; Legal: Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman
Influences: Rod Serling, Charlie Kaufman
— Zoe Hewitt
Justin Piasecki (“Relay”)
A self-described “Midwestern kid,” Piasecki first gained attention for his 2016 Academy Nicholl Fellowship-winning script “Last Meals” (formerly “Death of an Ortolan”), slated to go into production soon with Samuel L. Jackson and Boyd Holbrook starring.
“I was expecting to be an Uber driver and stay-at-home dad for the next 10 years,” Piasecki says. “I got very lucky, and I needed to make sure I never took that luck for granted.”
He tackled five more scripts on spec, landing for three consecutive years on the Black List. Of those three screenplays, “Relay” finished shooting earlier this year with David MacKenzie directing Riz Ahmed, Lily James and Sam Worthington. Likely headed into production next year: “Neutral Corner,” about a district court judge who moonlights as a boxing referee, and “Ballast,” a thriller set on a cargo ship.
Piasecki takes a very studied approach to writing, indulging in deep research and confessing an affinity for characters straddling worlds. “I think characters living in the gray have a lot of scar tissue, they have a lot of regrets,” he says.
No shortage of big IP opportunities also await — and Piasecki is no snob. A full-season TV adaptation of beloved videogame “League of Legends” marks his biggest foray into such realms.
“I still just want to do the anatomy of a city. And if that city has magic in it, it still has characters who have regrets and greed and ambitions,” he notes, describing his efforts as “a very mature TV-MA [version of] ‘The Wire’ in their universe.”
In April, Piasecki’s latest screenplay, “Stakehorse,” sold to Amazon.
Reps: Agency: Paradigm; Management: Range Media Partners; Legal: Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman
Influences: Peter Weir, George Saunders, Wendy Carlos
— Brent Simon
Rob Yescombe (“Grand Death Lotto”)
As a video game writer and producer, Yescombe has worked on numerous adaptations, from “The Twilight Zone VR” to “Rambo: The Video Game.” But the plot of his script for the upcoming Amazon action-comedy feature “Grand Death Lotto,” starring Awkwafina, John Cena and Simu Liu, stands out as fresh and original. In an economically challenged California of the near future, the government has established “The Grand Lottery,” which legally allows anyone who buys a ticket to kill the winner within the first 24 hours and claim the prize.
“It may sound dark, but when you see it, hopefully, you’ll come away with a good feeling,” says Yescombe.
While attending art school in his native England, Yescombe rented a small studio space in a warehouse also occupied by an Indian company churning out ultra-low-budget cable TV programming, and it ended up hiring him as a producer for £50 a week. He subsequently wrote a sitcom script that got shortlisted for a screenwriting award, attracting the attention of a video game company that was looking for writers.
Yescombe went on to work for gaming companies including Activision, Sega, Sony and Ubisoft, contributing to such titles as “The Invisible Hours,” “Rime” and “Fairpoint.” In 2019, Netflix greenlit his script (co-written by Rowan Athale) for the sci-fi actioner “Outside the Wire,” about an android soldier (Anthony Mackie) trying to stop a nuclear attack in 2036. It went on to become a worldwide No. 1 on the platform upon release in 2021.
“That was sort of the rocket fuel I needed to do the transition to movies,” says Yescombe.
Reps: A3 Artists Agency and Curtis Brown
Influences: Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, Hideo Kojima, Jackie Chan, Conan O’Brien’s era on “The Simpsons”
— Todd Longwell
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