EXCLUSIVE: Indie publisher Spiegel & Grau has teamed with The Black List to bring its full catalog of frontlist and backlist fiction and nonfiction books to the platform’s material discovery database, enabling industry professionals to identify and explore published books for adaptation.

The partnership is The Black List’s first with an independent publisher.

Spiegel & Grau are best known for award-winning books such as Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black and recent bestsellers Beartooth by Callan Wink, The Fire Agent by David Baerwald and Margaret Renkl’s The Comfort of Crows.

Film and television adaptations currently underway from the Spiegel & Grau catalogue include Culpability by Bruce Holsinger, under development; Everything/Nothing/Someone by Alice Carrière, under development with producer Lauri Firstenberg/IF Innovation Foundation; Go As A River by Shelley Read, under development with producers Paula Mazur and Mitchell Kaplan at Mazur Kaplan Company (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, All The Bright Places), The Boys by Katie Hafner, under development with producers Ross Katz (In The Bedroom, Lost In Translation) and Jonathan Krauss; among others.

Popular, yet-to-be-adapted Spiegel & Grau catalogue on blcklst.com include Freyja by Margrét Ann Thors; Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian; and Out of the Sky by Matti Friedman.

Using their free Black List industry accounts, professionals in the film, television, theater, and publishing industries can now search and browse titles from the Spiegel & Grau catalogue alongside the existing resources hosted on the platform. The integration expands access to published books (including fiction and nonfiction titles) as potential IP).

Spiegel & Grau books can be found via searching by title, author, genre and other associated book information available on blcklst.com. Metadata provided by Spiegel & Grau includes additional information such as a published book’s imprint, book cover art, book description, and more.

This initiative also makes it easier for Spiegel & Grau authors to list their published books in their Black List profile quickly and efficiently, according to S&G. When Spiegel & Grau authors add titles to their Black List profiles, key project fields will be pre-populated, reducing manual entry and ensuring accurate, consistent information across the platform.

Liza Wachter, Spiegel & Grau President and Director of Film and Television, said, “This partnership opens our catalog to the film and television industry in a new way. We’re proud to be the first independent publisher to partner with The Black List.”

“As a reader, I’ve been a fan of Spiegel & Grau for most of my adult life; it is a dream to be partnering with them on this initiative, The Black List’s second with a trade publisher, our first with an indie publisher. The Spiegel & Grau catalogue will be a great resource for TV/Film industry members searching IP for adaptation,” said Randy Winston, Creative Director of Fiction at The Black List.

EXCLUSIVE: Jim Taylor, the Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning screenwriter known for his longtime creative partnership with filmmaker Alexander Payne on a series of lauded, darkly comedic character studies, has inked with Paradigm for representation.

Payne and Taylor first collaborated on the Laura Dern-led indie satire Citizen Ruth, following that up with the Tom Perrotta adaptation Election, a dark comedy starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon that brought them an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and scored Independent Spirit Awards wins for Picture, Director and Screenplay, bringing Witherspoon her first Golden Globe nomination.

Taylor and Payne won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay for About Schmidt, an existential dramedy whose stars Nicholson and Kathy Bates earned Oscar nominations. Two years later, the duo won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Sideways, the celebrated wine country dramedy starring Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh, based on the 2004 novel by Rex Pickett. The film earned Academy Award nominations for Giamatti, Handen Church and Madsen for acting, as well as Payne for directing. In addition, Taylor and Payne won a BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Outside of his collaboration with Payne, Taylor is known for his creative partnership with his wife, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Tamara Jenkins (The Savages). Together, they adapted the Nick Hornby novel Juliet, Naked into the 2018 film starring Rose Byrne and Ethan Hawke.

Taylor was a producer on Payne’s 2011 film The Descendants, starring George Clooney, which was nominated for five Oscars and won two Golden Globes. Together, they’re currently adapting an Election sequel, based on Perrotta’s 2022 novel Tracy Flick Can’t Win, for Paramount, with Hello Sunshine and Bona Fide producing.

Taylor continues to be represented by Untitled Entertainment and attorney John Diemer at Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.

EXCLUSIVE: Production management and entertainment payroll firm Entertainment Partners (EP) has a new boss in Britain.

Chris Gratton has today been named Executive Vice President and Managing Director of EP’s UK business, effective today.

This will see him lead EP’s UK operations, as EP pushes out its integrated production technology offering in the UK. The company recently launched its SmartStart digital onboarding and SmartTime timecard solution in the country, adding to its existing UK production finance, payroll and production management technology capabilities.

Gratton joins EP from Ticketmaster Sport, where he served as Managing Director. There he helped to create the first-ever league-wide deal across Premiership Rugby and launch a centralized rugby marketplace.

Earlier in his career, Gratton held leadership roles at global agencies including FleishmanHillard, Octagon and Leo Burnett, working with leading brands across sponsorship, marketing and integrated campaigns.

“Chris brings an important combination of entertainment industry experience, commercial leadership and a deep understanding of how technology can help industries evolve,” said Markham L. Goldstein, President and CEO of Entertainment Partners.

“He has a track record of taking on complex challenges, bringing people and ideas together and turning new opportunities into meaningful results. As EP continues to evolve and expand what we bring to the UK market, his leadership will be an important part of helping us build on the momentum we’ve created.”

“What attracted me to EP is the opportunity to be part of a leading company that sits at the intersection of technology and entertainment, and has the scale, expertise and relationships to make a meaningful impact,” added Gratton. “I’m excited to work with the team and our clients and partners across the UK to help define the next chapter for the business and the industry.”

Gratton will be based in EP’s London office and will work closely with the company’s global leadership team.