What is your end goal as a writer of a Spec Feature Screenplay? The end goal is to get your screenplay MADE INTO A FEATURE FILM right? Of course, there are interim goals of getting recognition, to get feedback, to get writing assignments, to sign with an agent or a manager,... and with our competition, you’ll get all these things. But the END goal should always be to get your screenplay PRODUCED.

Well, here is your chance. Most of our judges are CEOs of the world’s most renowned film production companies. Almost all of them are Academy Award Nominated producers! They ALL actually have the Power, Resources and access to Hollywood A-listers to get your script made into an Award-Winning Feature Film.

The Jury:

KATHLEEN KENNEDY - EIGHT-time Academy Award® Nominated producer, PRESIDENT of LUCASFILM.

Kathleen Kennedy is one of the most successful and respected producers and executives in the film industry today. 

Since 2012 she is The President of Lucasfilm after The Walt Disney Company acquired the company for $4.2 billion. 

In 1981, she co-founded the phenomenally successful production company Amblin Entertainment with Steven Spielberg and her husband Frank Marshall.

Her first film as a producer was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). A decade later, again with Steven Spielberg, she produced the Jurassic Park franchise. She also produced Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with George Lucas. With Amblin, she produced the Back to the Future trilogy. She has produced the films of such directors as Steven Spielberg, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Robert Zemeckis, JJ Abrams, M. Night Shyamalan and Clint Eastwood. 

Altogether, Kathleen Kennedy has further produced or executive produced more than 70 feature films, which have collectively garnered 120 Academy Award nominations and 25 wins. Her films have earned over $11 billion worldwide, including five of the fifty highest-grossing films in motion picture history. 

Recently Kathleen Kennedy was the producer of the Star Wars films: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), which broke the record for the biggest domestic opening of all time that year, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the number one grossing movie in 2016, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), the highest grossing movie worldwide in 2017, as well as Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).

Kennedy is currently the executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning The Mandalorian. She also serves as a producer on all of Lucasfilm’s live-action titles in production, including Indiana Jones, Willow, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and more.  

PAUL SCHRADER - Writer of Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER and RAGING BULL.  Academy Award® Nominee for Best Original Screenplay for First Reformed (2017)

Paul Schrader is known as one of the cinema’s most successful screenwriters. He is also a film critic and film director. He started his career as a film critic, before he began writing screenplays, hitting the jackpot when he sold his first screenplay, Yakuza, for then-record sum of $325,000, thus establishing his reputation as one of Hollywood's top screenwriters. 

He first received widespread recognition through his screenplay for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Paul Schrader has also directed 24 films, including Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) and Affliction (1997). 

His three most recent films have been described by Schrader as a loose trilogy: First Reformed (2017), The Card Counter (2021), and Master Gardener (2022).

He has written the screenplays for two 'Best Picture' Academy Award nominees (Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980), but would only receive his first Academy Award nomination for 'Best Screenplay' more than 40 years working in the business - he got nominated for First Reformed (2017).

DAN JINKS - Academy Award® Winner for Best Picture for American Beauty

Dan Jinks is an American film and television producer. In 2010, Jinks launched his own film and television production company, the Dan Jinks Company. In July 2011, he signed an overall deal with CBS Television Studios. 

Previously, working with producing partner Bruce Cohen, Jinks produced Milk, directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn. The film was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay.

The pair won the Best Picture Academy Award in 2000 for producing American Beauty. The film won a total of five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Next film was Tim Burton's Big Fish, which was nominated as Best Picture for both the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs.

In television, Jinks and Cohen executive produced the acclaimed ABC series Pushing Daisies, which won eight Emmy Awards. 

In the summer of 2008, Jinks and Cohen produced A Timeless Call, a tribute to war veterans that Steven Spielberg directed for the Democratic National Convention.

Jinks produced Nothing to Lose, starring Martin Lawrence and Tim Robbins for Touchstone Pictures, and executive produced The Bone Collector, with Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie for Universal. 

WENDY FINERMAN - Academy Award® Winner for Best Picture for Forrest Gump

Wendy Finerman is an American film producer. She is best known for winning the Academy Award for Best Picture for Forrest Gump in 1994. Forrest Gump received critical acclaim for Zemeckis's direction, performances (particularly those of Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise), visual effects, music, and screenplay. The film was an enormous success at the box office; it became the top-grossing film in America released that year and earned over US $678.2 million worldwide. 

Further Wendy Finerman won a BAFTA Award for Fairy Tale in 1998. She has also produced such popular films as The Fan starring Robert De Niro; Stepmom starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon; P.S. I Love You starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler and The Devil Wears Prada starring Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep. She is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and runs her own company, Wendy Finerman Productions.

GARY MICHAEL WALTERS - Producer of such iconic films as Drive, Nightcrawler, and Whiplash! Emmy Award® Nominee for Outstanding Television Movie Oslo (2021)

Gary Michael Walters - CEO of Bold Films. Bold Films is a production and finance company dedicated to providing an artistic haven for creative talent and to producing original, studio-quality films with worldwide commercial appeal. Gary oversees all aspects of Bold Films: production, finance, legal, creative, strategy and sales. Gary has produced or executive produced all of its movies. He is a producer of such iconic films as Drive, Nightcrawler and Whiplash! His recent production is Netflix’s film The Guilty with Jake Gyllenhaal.

MIKE MEDAVOY - Academy Award® Nominee for Best Picture for Black Swan

Mike Medavoy - CEO of Phoenix Pictures. Sample some of the best American films over the past forty years and there's a good chance Mike Medavoy played a role in the success of many of them. From agent to studio chief to producer, he has been involved with over 300 feature films, of which 17 have been nominated and 7 have won Best Picture Oscars®, as well as numerous international film festival awards. He is a producer of such iconic films as Shutter Island, Zodiac and Black Swan! For the latest he received an Academy Award Nomination. He’s produced for Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Darren Aronofsky and many more...

ROSS KATZ - Two-Time Academy Award® Nominee for Best Picture for In the Bedroom and for Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation

Ross Katz - is an American film producer, screenwriter and director. Ross is a two time Academy Award Nominee, nominated for Academy Awards for producing Todd Field's In the Bedroom (2001), and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003). Katz has had three films in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. He won the best screenplay award from the Writers Guild of America and Best Director from the Director’s Guild of America - both for his 2009 Kevin Bacon film “Taking Chance” (HBO films). He currently runs the production company Sui Generis Pictures. 

MICHAEL LONDON - Academy Award® Nominee for Best Picture for Sideways

Michael London is an American film producer and a partner, with Janice Williams, in Groundswell Productions. He has produced over 20 films including Sideways, The Visitor, Win Win, Smart People, and Trumbo. Earlier on, before Groundswell was formed, his production company Michael London Productions treated to a Paramount first look deal before 2006. Even before that, he was a producer at USA Films/Focus Features. The film Sideways was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture in 2005. On the heels of the Academy nomination, London won "Producer of the Year" in 2006 at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. In 2013, Groundswell was scheduled to produce Mona for the studio New Regency, based on the novel of the same name by Swedish author Dan T. Sehlberg. He has a first look TV deal with Fox 21 in 2013.  London will be the executive producer of the upcoming HBO adaptation of the novel A Visit From the Goon Squad. 

EMILIE GEORGES - Academy Award® Nominee for Best Picture for Call Me by Your Name

Emilie Georges is the Co-Founder & CEO of the Production Company Paradise City, Paris. Prior to starting her new venture Paradise City with producer Naima Abed, Georges founded Memento Distribution and Production in 2003 which expanded into Memento International & La Cinefacture (production) in 2004. Georges has been devoted to promoting, producing and supporting high-profile, director-driven independent films such as Laurent Cantet’s THE CLASS (Golden Palm, Cannes 2008); Asghar Farhadi’s A SEPARATION (2012 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film), THE SALESMAN (2015 Academy Award for Best Film in a Foreign Language), Joachim Trier’s LOUDER THAN BOMBS (2013) and THELMA (2017), Wash Westmoreland & Richard Glatzer’s STILL ALICE( 2016); Josh & Benny Safdie’s GOOD TIME (2017). Several directors she repped are now working on the Marvel franchise – Jon Watts, Destin Daniel Cretton or Cate Shortland!

Georges currently runs Memento International alongside her production companies at Paradise City (including ex-La Cinefacture). Her credits include US indie genre films such as Jeremy Saulnier’s BLUE RUIN and Jim Mickle’s COLD IN JULY & WE ARE WHAT WE ARE Sundance winners World dramatic CIRCLES (2014) by Srdan Golubovich & CONTRACORRIENTE (Audience, 2010) by Javier Fuentes Leon; as well as Luca Guadagnino’s Oscar winner feature film CALL ME BY YOUR NAME for which she received an Oscar nomination.

SIENA OBERMAN - Variety Top 10 Producers to Watch in 2021, Founder & CEO of Artemis Pictures

Siena Oberman is the founder of Artemis Pictures, a filmmaker driven female run production company. She was named in Forbes 30 Under 30 2022, Variety Top 10 Producers to Watch in 2021, and Diversity in Cannes Top 10 Female Filmmakers to Watch in 2019. She focuses on stylistically bold independent films and female driven stories. She's had feature films in TIFF, Berlinale, Tribeca, Telluride, and Venice. Her films have been acquired by companies such as A24, IFC, Screen Media, Universal, Lionsgate, Hulu, and eOne. Before Artemis, Siena was a Development Executive at Yale Productions. Prior to producing, Siena went to USC and studied Business and Cinema.

ADAM NOVAK - Head of Story Development for WME

Adam Novak is the Head of Story Development for Hollywood's Top Talent and Literary Agency WME (William Morris/Endeavor)

Born, bred, and buttered in DC, Adam Novak majored in screenwriting at USC’s School of Cinema-Television where he sold his senior thesis script Conversations with a Cannibal before starting his career at the venerable William Morris Agency (now WME) as the exclusive script reader for Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta, Clint Eastwood, and Bruce Willis. 

As Head of the William Morris/Endeavor (WME) Story Department for more than 25 years, Novak championed The Blair Witch Project, Promising Young Woman, Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Truman Show, and Waterworld.  

Novak has also published a series of novels about the movie business: The Non-Pro (Salvo Press/2008), Take Fountain (Rare Bird Books/2015), Freaks of the Industry (Rare Bird Books/2017), and Rat Park (Red Giant Books/2022). Novak recently celebrated his 33rd year at the WME agency.

The Prizes:

Grand Prize Winner(s): 

* $5,000 Guaranteed Option  for the Overall Winner! 

This is your real chance at getting your script made into a feature film!

*MENTORSHIP with Two-Time Academy Award® Nominee ROSS KATZ  (Ross was nominated for Academy Awards for producing Todd Field's In the Bedroom (2001), and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003). He currently runs his own production company Sui Generis Pictures.

* 8 x $500 in Cash to each of our 8 GENRE Prize Winners. 

Best Action & Adventure - $500 for the Winner

Best Animation - $500 for the Winner

Best Comedy - $500 for the Winner

Best Drama - $500 for the Winner

Best Horror - $500 for the Winner

Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy - $500 for the Winner

Best Thriller - $500 for the Winner

Best True Story & Public Domain - $500 for the Winner

Top 5 Finalists:

* Each of the top 5 Finalists will receive a copy of the NEWEST Final Draft 12 - The screenwriting software used by 95% of Hollywood (5 x $217.55 value)

Top 15 Finalists:

The top 15 Finalists will receive: 

* Each of the 15 finalists will receive an EXCLUSIVE one page written feedback report from one of our 10 Academy Award Winning/Nominated judges! This one is HUGE!  The CEOs of the best film production companies in the world will actually read your script and give you feedback! And if they like it, you'll have a big chance of getting it produced into a feature film! You can get your script read by Kathleen Kennedy, the PRESIDENT of LUCASFILM! Or by PAUL SCHRADER, the writer of TAXI DRIVER! Or by any other of our 10 Academy Award Winning/Nominated judges!

* Each of the 15 finalists will also receive a 4-month InkTip Pro Membership. (15 x $130 value) As an InkTip Pro Member, thousands of filmmakers can find and read your scripts, and you'll be able to pitch directly to production companies every week. With over 3,000 options and 400 movies made, InkTip is the place for independent film.

Semi-Finalists:

* Each of the 120 semi-finalists will receive a copy of the Script Hackr: The extensive online step-by-step screenwriting course from Script Reader Pro (120 x $99 value) 

Quarter-Finalists:

* Quarterfinalists, Semifinalists, and 15 Finalists will be published on our Instagram and all our other social media accounts. We currently have more than 870,000 followers combined and this will be important exposure for you and will create more opportunities for your screenplay and your writing career. 

* Your script will be sent to our Judges, Producers, Literary Agents, Managers & specially chosen members of our industry contacts. You don’t need to be one of our finalists to have your script sent out. If we notice an interesting script that we know a certain producer, agent, or manager will be interested to read, we'll contact you and ask if we can send it to a certain industry contact.