‘The Big Short’ wins the USC Libraries Scripter Award

“The Big Short” is the winner of the 28th USC Libraries Scripter Award for adapted screenplay.

The honor, announced Saturday evening at the university’s Doheny Memorial Library, goes to the screenwriter and the author of the work on which the script is based. “Big Short” screenwriters Adam McKay and Charles Randolph shared the award with Michael Lewis, author of “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.”

McKay and Randoph won the Writers Guild Award for the script and are nominated for the Academy Award for adapted screenplay.

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“The Big Short” was in competition with “Brooklyn,” “The End of the Tour,” “The Martian” and “Room.”

The past five Scripter winners -- “The Imitation Game,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Argo,” “The Descendants” and “The Social Network” -- have all gone on to win the Oscar for adapted screenplay.

For the first time in awards history, the Scripter was also given to a TV adaptation. William F. Zorzi and David Simon, who penned the six-part HBO miniseries “Show Me a Hero,” shared the Scripter with Lisa Belkin, author of the nonfiction book, “Show Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race, and Redemption.”