The 2021 Launch Pad Pilot Competition was our biggest competition ever, with a record number of entries and unprecedented quality. It was an honor to be able to read so many excellent pilots and imagine the series that could follow.
We want to thank our industry judges and partners for their hard work in making these selections, and we also want to thank all of our entrants for sharing their fantastic writing with us.
We are proud to announce our Overall Winner, Top Drama and Top Comedy winners, alongside our three Launch Pad Mentorship Selections, Guaranteed Signing Selection, and Guaranteed Option Selection.
Congratulations to our winners and to all of our finalists. If you’re looking to view all Top 100 finalists from this year’s competition, you can find the complete list on Coverfly here. Want to receive a notification when the next season opens? Sign up for reminders via Coverfly here.
Overall Winner
WHO IS MONICA STRANGE? by Andrea Shawcross
Desperate to uncover the truth about her father’s disappearance, a true crime-obsessed teen moves to a secretive small town where she teams up with a savvy local lifeguard to find a missing girl.
Drama Teen Mystery
Overall Winner
Top Drama Winner
HATCH by Sandy Nicholson
Four groups of strangers locked in separate underground bunkers figure out a way to communicate with one another and begin to realize they’re not being protected from the world above but rather being held captive for reasons more insidious than they could have imagined.
Drama Sci-Fi Thriller
Top Drama Winner
Top Comedy Winner
WHAT’S GRANDDAD by Ivy Johnson
When a woman discovers an evil ghoul living in her home, everyone she knows insists the monster is a beloved fixture of the household, setting her on a mission to rid her family of this sinister presence before the rest of the world convinces her — rightly or wrongly — that it’s all in her head.
Comedy Dark Comedy Horror
Top Comedy Winner
Traction Guaranteed Option Selection
ALTERED by Evyn Williams
A reclusive crime scene analyst who has hidden his telekinesis since he was a kid to avoid government detection investigates a murder that may implicate his childhood friend, who was taken away years earlier for using his own power.
Drama Sci-Fi
Traction Guaranteed Option Selection
Recon Entertainment Guaranteed Signing Selection
APOLLO 19 by Ray Gettman Bush
Three Apollo astronauts splash down from a successful lunar landing only to discover they’ve returned to an alternate reality where no one believes they traveled to the moon.
Drama Sci-Fi Period
Recon Guaranteed Signing Selection
Mentorship Program Selections
Mentorship Selection – Elaine Loh
TRIPLE NET by Louisa Kendrick Burton
A Black woman fights to the top of her white male-dominated real estate firm while investigating a plot to kill her father.
Drama
Top 100 Mentorship Selection – Elaine Loh
Mentorship Selection – Liz Storm
SEVEN SEAS by Jordan Goodman
A female pirate captain sets off on an adventure to find a long lost map to a treasure believed to give whoever has it control over the entire Seven Seas.
Adventure Fantasy Period
Top 100 Mentorship Selection – Liz Storm
Mentorship Selection – Preston Walker
BLACKAPPELLA by Danny Rogers
Comedy LGBTQ
Top 50 Mentorship Selection – Preston Walker
