The best movies and TV shows rest on one solid foundation: the script, and Variety has selected 10 of the up-and-coming scribes to celebrate in our Screenwriter to Watch class of 2026. The writers will be honored at a panel taking place at the Santa Fe Intl. The duo first collaborated on “Dumb Blonde,” a script for a Dolly Parton origin story that made the Black List in 2022.
So we started talking about who else interested us, and we’re both longtime Bourdain fans,” says Howe about the process of pitching “Tony.” “Our way of working when it comes to biopics was to find a window that serves as a microcosm for the larger journey, and for Dolly, it was her first eight years in Nashville when she becomes herself,” says Bartels. The “Tony” script was informed by some of their own experiences. And then we love origin stories.
We love trying to figure out what makes these fascinating people that we admire and love — how they got that way and what are the seeds that are planted early on that grow into this adult,” says Howe. Howe and Bartels are now developing a richly varied slate of material: a biopic about a young Jackie Bouvier and her romance with John F. Kennedy; a project about the early days of MTV; an adaptation of the “Murder 101” podcast for Amazon with Jon Watts directing; plus the video game adaptation “Metal Gear Solid” for Sony.
She studied it at Berkeley, drawn in by poetry classes she took while nearly minoring in African American studies, and the discipline still shapes how she builds a character. Those are my people.” “Josephine” is a difficult film to summarize, and de Araújo knows it. Told through the subjective point of view of an 8-year-old girl, it opens with an act of violence witnessed through a child’s uncomprehending gaze.
The POV was on the page from the first line. Can I transport people back to when they were 8 years old?” Next, she vows, something lighter will come. If I could make a goddamn rom-com that was beautiful and classy, I’m here for it.” — Clayton Davis Reps Agency: WME; Legal: Frankfurt Kurnitz Klein & Selz Influences Martin McDonagh, Steve Zaillian, Nancy Oliver Esiri writes his first drafts longhand before he lets go.
He and his brother, Arie, share directing duties, but the “Clarissa” screenplay is his alone, at least until the pages leave his desk. I’ll take a good note from anybody.” He credits a directing teacher, Andrew McLean, with the philosophy he lives by. It doesn’t care about your ego,” he says.
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