THE HIT LIST: The Lions of Mesopotamia makes "Best SCRIPTS of 2019"

What a way to kick off 2020! My sports/historical drama script The Lions of Mesopotamia has made the 2019 HIT LIST. Compiled by Launch Pad, The Hit List represents an industry-wide “best of” the spec scripts making their way around Hollywood, as voted on every year by studio execs, agents, producers, and more.

Not bad, since we really only started going out with the script in September!

Past titles on the Hit List include: A Quiet Place, I Tonya, The Imitation Game, Draft Day (by one of my absolute favorite writers, Rajiv Joseph), Life Itself (by the ridiculously talented Dan Fogelman, creator of This is Us), and so many other incredible scripts that have gone on to make incredible films. The full list its available here.

It is a huge honor to be a part of this group (shout out to my buddy Avra Fox-Lerner who also charted!). Every year we hear “the spec market is dead” or that it’s a waste of time to keep telling the stories that we care about as writers— they tell us no one’s buying and, at best, we are toiling away on elaborate writing samples.

I chose to tell a story about real people and I continue to believe that this story will one day come to the big screen and change lives.

LIONS is the true heroic sports story of the Iraqi Football Team during the Hussein regime and the challenges they faced while attempting to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. It weaves together a high-action sports story, historical drama, and a humanistic look at every day life in Baghdad.

Being recognized by my colleagues means the world to me. I am on a mission to tell a Middle Eastern story that does not feature a single American soldier. I hope that 2020 is the year I get a little closer to sharing a different look at Iraq with both true-story lovers and soccer fans around the world.

A massive THANK YOU to Launch Pad and Tracking Board for being an important source of support for spec writers, and an equally massive THANK YOU to the industry people who continue to pick up a spec from an unknown writer and crack it open, rolling the dice that it might just be the next life-changing Oscar winner.

We writers count on you. We are grateful that you make the time to read our passion projects. And thank you for your votes!