A Year on the Black List
Takeaways, Reflections, and Rankings
This morning, the 2024 Black List was released.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed to not have made it this year with my zombie thriller THE WORKING DEAD.
But I give a heartfelt congratulations to the writers who landed on this year’s list, and may they enjoy the honoree dinner!
With this morning’s announcement, it has officially been one year since UNNIE landed on the 2023 Black List. Some reflections below.
But first …
What is the Black List?
Established by Franklin Leonard in 2004, the Black List is an annual survey of the most-liked unproduced scripts in Hollywood. Here’s Leonard’s note at the top of the 20th anniversary edition from this year:
It’s a prestigious honor to be named to the Black List, but in more recent years, it’s become an open industry secret that agencies and management companies will campaign to land their clients on the list (just like awards season!).
It’s very rare for someone to land on the Black List organically these days, but every year, there are at least a couple of scripts that do, and kudos to them.
To be able to say that you’re a “Black List screenwriter” or a particular script was a “Black List script” has become something of a calling card, even if critics believe the list is a bit of a publicity stunt.
The Black List doesn’t come with any sort of immediate rewards — you don’t get financial compensation for making the list, but it may confer momentum around a screenwriter who already has a project gaining hype around town.
As for my personal experience …
How the Black List affected me
UNNIE, my K-pop thriller script, eked onto the 2023 Black List.
The script had gone out to town in March 2023 and created a bit of buzz … going into April of last year, we had four parties that were interested in the project, culminating in a studio offer at the end of the month.
But unfortunately, the WGA strike disrupted everything. As we re-emerged on the other end, all wind had gone out of everyone’s sails. Slates had been cleared; production was lackluster; motivation was null.
When UNNIE landed on the Black List in December 2023, it injected new life into the project — we suddenly had a bunch of people in both film production and music requesting to read the script. I promoted it relentlessly on my social media, did an interview with JoySauce, and even topped a Forbes ranking of the Black List loglines.
In March 2024, we sold UNNIE to Badlands.
Did the script sell because of the Black List? No.
But it certainly didn’t hurt.
Perhaps the biggest net benefit of the list is the lateral networking that occurs — other aspiring screenwriters reaching out because they found your premise interesting, asking to get coffee or lunch, or DMing you on Instagram to compliment you on a job well done.
But the most significant impact landing on the list had on my life was that … I actually started reading scripts off the list. (Most of the scripts are uploaded into a Google Drive that is shared pretty widely around the industry … if you know someone with the Google Drive link, you can access the scripts easily).
In the past year, I read a total of 34 scripts that had appeared on previous Black Lists (most of them from my cohort, but some stretching back to 2021).
And so …
Here were my favorite Black List scripts I read in the past year:
ULTRA, by Colin Bannon - read on January 6th
ULTRA placed on the 2021 Black List (the numbers you see in the background of the images are how many votes the script received) — Colin Bannon has become somewhat of a Black List legend, having landed something like seven or eight of his scripts on the list over the years.
He made waves earlier this year for selling a 50-page short story for an eye-watering seven figures. ULTRA, whose logline you can see above, is set up with Tristar.
I was told by a fellow filmmaker friend to read Colin’s writing, and I wasn’t disappointed. He was able to weave such a compelling backstory for the protagonist and all the side characters as to why they are so obsessed with ultra marathon running, and then throw that into a fun, horror-based psycho race.
It was the very first script I read in my Black List reading project this year, and stands out as being one of the best.
BALLAST, by Justin Piasecki - read on January 29th
Full disclosure: Justin Piasecki is a friend and a fellow member of my WGA cohort.
Piasecki’s 2023 Black List script, STAKEHORSE, was sold to Amazon with Justin Lin signed on to direct.
I am so insanely jealous Justin wrote BALLAST. As some of you may know, I have an odd fixation with shipping news and have always dreamed of writing some sort of shipping or ocean-based thriller. So when I read BALLAST this past January, I felt sick to my stomach because he already wrote such a perfect shipping thriller.
It was also so well-researched, and the technicalities of balancing a ship (providing ballast) was presented in a way that felt dramatic and accessible. Justin also managed to thread in a subtle critique about the nefarious dangers of hypercapitalism without being on the nose or preachy about it.
I guess now this means I have no choice but to write a submarine thriller, since the shipping thriller has already been done so well!
OLD TIME HOCKEY, by Kevin Jakubowski - read on June 8th
An entrant on the 2023 Black List, OLD TIME HOCKEY was incredibly sweet and earnest.
The Black List likes to reward high-concept scripts, or balls-to-the-wall thriller and horror movies. In fact, of the 34 Black List scripts I read this year, only 10 were not of the thriller or horror variety. Of the drama concepts, OLD TIME HOCKEY stands out for being a cute small-town indie movie about a bunch of dads getting together to prove something to themselves and each other.
I’m a sucker for a good sports movie and read quite a few off last year’s list, including ones about horse racing, water polo, skiing, and soccer. But I do love me a good team sports film built around broken pasts and rival relationships. I even got a little choked up during one part in the third act, when the protagonist has a meaningful moment with his father, a retired hockey coach. At the end of 2023, Gary Ross was signed on to direct this project.
I do also want to give an honorable mention to DIDIER, by Jackson Kellard, about the true-story of African footballer Didier Drogba. I learned a lot about how soccer helped to end the civil war in the Ivory Coast.
These are the feel-good sports movies we want to see!
PALETTE, by Zach Strauss - read on July 11th
While I don’t think PALETTE necessarily sticks the landing, I LOVED the central conceit of this script. The idea of color theory and how colors can subtly alter human behavior. That a company might specialize in creating colors that can alter the course of history. And that a woman with a special form of synesthesia might be particularly suited to this line of work.
I think all of this lends itself to an extremely cinematic telling, and excitingly, it looks like this script is gonna go! Hunter Schafer and Noomi Rapace have both signed on to star in what will be Strauss’s feature debut.
BOXMAN, by Adam Yorke - read on December 1st
One of my last Black List reads of the year may also be my favorite — I love me a well-constructed heist movie, and Adam Yorke puts on a screenwriting clinic.
Everything that is set up ends up paying off, including the opening monologue, which gets paid off with the very last line! The twists are excellent and inevitable, and the protagonist is unruly but gruffly charismatic.
I was so delighted by how well constructed this script was (just like a good bank safe!), I can only imagine how much outlining Adam must have done to get this right. With a script this strong, I am not at all surprised that the project is set up at Lionsgate and has already found its director.
A Note on Genre and Gender
You may have noticed that my top 5 scripts were all written by white men. Of the 34 Black List scripts I read, only 10 had women writers on them, and that was after a stint in May where I purposely tried to read a slew of female writers.
The Black List still skews heavily male, and it was starkly apparent to me at last year’s Black List dinner.
You’ll also notice that the genres of the top 5 scripts also skewed thriller. This is possibly because the pacing of a thriller (both on screen and on the page) is so relentless, it makes it an easy, breezy read. This is also possibly because the other genres I read — broad comedies, “based on a true story” period pieces, historical dramas, and satires — are just so hard to execute well.
Which is not to say that there were not good scripts written by women or good scripts in other genres, but just that these five stood out to me most as having an extra edge to them.
I am exciting to continue this project going into the next year — it’s extremely helpful to me to see what my peers are writing and working on, and what topics seem to capture our imagination.
In peeking at the 2024 Black List loglines, I’m already seeing some common themes around AI, motherhood, scams, and … not one, but TWO scripts about pool hustlers.
I can’t wait.
If you have comments, compliments, or concerns, email yuoughtaknow@gmail.com.
Bummed that your Working dead script didn’t make it! The amount of research you did my god was it impressive. But this year’s Black List crept up on me! I haven’t seen the google drive floating around on any of my usual screenwriting groups though…anyway, thanks for the write-up! Hope to read some of them soon.