The USC Scripter nominations are meant to honor film scripts that were adapted from previously published material.  You’ll find their film nominations below and you may immediately notice that Oscar front runner Carol is missing.  Make of that what you will.

The Big Short
Screenwriters Adam McKay and Charles Randolph, adapted from Michael Lewis’s nonfiction work “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine”
Paramount Pictures and W.W. Norton

Brooklyn
Novelist Colm Tóibín and screenwriter Nick Hornby
Fox Searchlight and Viking

The End Of The Tour
Screenwriter Donald Margulies, adapted from David Lipsky’s memoir “Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace”
A24 and Broadway Books

The Martian
Novelist Andy Weir and screenwriter Drew Goddard
Twentieth Century Fox and Crown Publishing Group

Room
Emma Donoghue for the novel and screenplay
A24 and Little, Brown and Company