Variety Has Made A List Of Screenwriters To Watch For, And It Includes Writers Behind 'Supergirl' And 'KPop Demon Hunters'
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Variety has made a list (and is checking it twice) of ten up-and-coming screenwriters for us to watch for. The list of screenwriters will be honored at the Screenwriter to Watch class of 2025 panel at the Santa Fe International Film Festival on October 17. Honorees include:
1. Jonathan Abrams (The Bodyguard)
Abrams was put on the map with the film, Juror #2, a courtroom thriller released in 2024 starring Nicholas Hoult and directed by Clint Eastwood. Abrams is currently working on a reboot of the 1992 Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston film of the same name, although with a younger, less-established pop star.
2. Ashley Nicole Black (Ma 2)
Black is already well-known for her work on Full Frontal with Samanth Bee, as well as Ted Lasso and Shrinking. She is working on Ma 2, a horror film sequel, as well as a romantic comedy with Damon Wayans Jr., Accidentally Married.
3. Ross Evans (How to Save a Marriage)
An associate director on Broadway-turned-screenwriter sold a secretive script, How To Save a Marriage, with Robert Pattinson (Twilight) attached, to Sony in 2024. Zoe Kravitz is currently attached to direct the film
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4. Austin Everett (The Traveler)
A former child actor from Japan, Austin has been making movies with his friends since he moved to Utah when he was six years old. In 2017, he heard about an unpublished book called The Traveler, by Joseph Eckert, about a man who jumps forward in time. He adapted it on spec and optioned it in 2019. The script found its way to Paramount Studios, which is set to produce it, with Minari Director Lee Isaac Chung set to direct. He has also penned an original Samurai Western movie set in the John Wick universe which he is keeping a tight lid on. He will soon be making his directorial debut with the original film, Akiya.
5. Alyssa Hill (The Housewife)
Alyssa Hill’s first script she wrote, The Housewife went in front of the cameras in May, making her a produced screenwiter. The film, which is based on a true story, is “a thriller about a New York Times reporter (Tye Sheridan) in 1964 who, while investigating a New Jersey man he suspects is a former Nazi officer (Luke Evans), becomes obsessed with his mysterious wife (Naomi Watts).”
6. Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan (KPop Demon Hunters)
Jimenez and McMechan met at a university and became writing partners with a shared love of comedy and the “messy side of womanhood.” Fellow screenwriter Nicole Perlman discovered the writing duo and approached them with an idea that she was beginning to produce, which became the recent sleeper animated hit Sony Animation and Netflix hit, KPop Demon Hunters.
7. Austin Kolodney (Dead Man’s Wire)
Kolodney went from working at the Los Angeles Zoo to walking the red carpets at the Venice and Toronto film festivals in the space of a single calendar year. He graduated from USC film school in 2015 and spent the last decade “grinding” and struggling to survive before penning Dead Man’s Wire, which was bought by Row K Films, in indie film distributor. The film, directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Bill Skarsgard, was based on a true story about Tony Kiritsis, who took his Mortgage Banker hostage in 1977 and went on to become some kind of folk hero.
8. Ana Nogueira (Supergirl)
Nogueira was a former actress who made a name for herself in The Michael J. Fox Show and The Vampire Diaries before making a shift into writing in the mid-2010s. After being handed a stack of Supergirl comics by a DC Studio executive, Nogueira tried to better understand the character and motivations of Kara Zor-El (aka Supergirl). This ultimately led to Noguiera penning her first produced screenplay when Supergirl, directed by Craig Gillespie and starring Milly Alcock, debuts in June2026
9. Ben Shattuck (The History of Sound)
Shattuck never took a screenwriting course while studying English at Cornell University but stumbled into a career as a screenwriter. His theatrical self-adaptation, The History of Sound, premiered at Cannes Film Festival, starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor. The success of his film has attracted the attention of popular actor and director Ben Stiller, who has talked with Shattuck about adapting the novel, The Lost Airman: A True Story of Escape From Nazi-Occupied France.
10. Ajon Singh (Primetime)
Like with Shattuck, Singh never intended to become a screenwriter, and was instead working towards a PhD in Economics. However, Singh began writing, initially as an escape from reality, using it to try to help him make sense of world events. However, as fate would have it, he wound up penning scripts for Robert Pattinson (Primetime) and Daniel Kaluuya, a Spider Punk spinoff from the Spider-Verse film series.
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Source(s): Variety
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