John and Craig invite investigative reporter Zeke Faux (Bloomberg) for a new round of How Would This Be A Movie. They cover stories ranging from the secret history of sushi to fake Scottish rappers. Zeke shares what it’s like to option an article to Hollywood and tricks for getting noticed by producers.

In follow-up, we get a romantic update from Oops and answer a listener question on whether it’s worth watching prior adaptations of a given work.

In our bonus segment for premium members, we ask: what are the remaining distinctions between writing for Hollywood and writing for magazines?

• Scriptnotes Hoodies order by November 18 in time for the Holidays!
• Veterans in Media and Entertainment
• Movie Pass is Back!
• 339 – Mostly Terrible People sign up for the full episode at Scriptnotes.net
• Zeke Faux and on Twitter!
• How Thieves Stole $40 Million of Copper by Spray-Painting Rocks By Andy Hoffman and Benedikt Kammel
• us.html">Secret History of Sushi by Daniel Fromson with illustrations by Igor Bastidas for the NYT
• The Migrant Laborers Who Clean Up after Disasters by Sarah Stillman for the New Yorker
• ‘The story of a weird world I was warned never to tell’ by Sarah McDermott for the BBC
• Silibill N’ Brains: Meet the Two Scottish Rappers Who Conned the World by Tom Seymour for Vice and Fake It Till You Make It: The Great Hip Hop Hoax by Samuel on DDW Magazine
• Inevitable Foundation
• Friendsgiving Miry’s List
• Jasmila Žbanić, Quo Vadis, Aida? and #Craigana
• Roam Research
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• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Ryan Gerber (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.