The Black List (survey)
| The Black List | |
|---|---|
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| Created | 2004 |
| Location | blcklst |
| Author(s) | Franklin Leonard |
| Purpose | Ranking of top unproduced screenplays |
The Black List is an annual survey of the "most liked" motion picture screenplays not yet produced. It has been published every year since 2005 on the second Friday of December by Franklin Leonard, a development executive who subsequently worked at Universal Pictures and Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment. The website states that these are not necessarily "the best" screenplays, but rather "the most liked", since it is based on a survey of studio and production company executives.
Of the approximately 1000 screenplays The Black List has included since 2005, nearly a third have been later produced as theatrical films, including successful and award-winning examples such as Argo,American Hustle, Juno,The King's Speech, Slumdog Millionaire,Spotlight and The Revenant. The produced films have all together grossed well over $25.54 billion, and have been nominated for 241 Academy Awards and 205 Golden Globe Awards, winning 48 and 40, respectively. As of the 88th Academy Awards, four of the last eight best picture Oscars went to scripts featured on a previous Black List, as well as ten of the last 20 screenwriting Oscars (Original and Adapted Screenplays). In addition, writers whose scripts are listed often find that they are more readily hired for other jobs, even if their listed screenplays still have not been produced, such as Jim Rash and Nat Faxon, two of the writers of the Oscar-winning screenplay of The Descendants, who had an earlier screenplay make the list.Slate columnist David Haglund has written that the list's reputation as a champion for "beloved but challenging" works has been overstated, since "these are screenplays that are already making the Hollywood rounds. And while, as a rule, they have not yet been produced, many of them are already in production."
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