About the book
Seven years. Two industries. One story no one was supposed to tell.
N.D. Zerman founded ScriptBook in 2014 with a singular vision: to build the first AI capable of reading a screenplay and predicting its commercial success. What followed was seven years inside Hollywood — an industry that speaks the language of innovation but operates on the logic of a feudal system.
Shuttling between studio backlots in Los Angeles and venture capital boardrooms in Europe, she encountered the same power structures playing out in two different costumes. In Hollywood, gatekeepers decide which stories get told. In venture capital, they decide whose ideas get funded. In both cases, the rules are unwritten, the criteria are subjective, and the system is not designed for women who refuse to shrink.
The Hollywood Chronicles is not a business book with lessons neatly boxed and labelled. It is a memoir — specific, personal, and honest about what it costs to build something real inside a world built on performance.
"Hollywood doesn't fear technology. It fears exposure."
— from The Hollywood Chronicles of a Female Tech Founder
ScriptBook's patented technology — registered in both the EU and US — proved that a machine could read a screenplay and predict box office performance with up to 86% accuracy. The technology worked. What followed anyway is what this book is about.
