And he attempts to solve the impossible screenwriting quandry of ‘how do you make a screenplay work without any conflict???’

Genre: Christmas Hallmark Movie
Premise: After inheriting a house in Vail, an event planner finds herself planning a giant food fest to save a local restaurant, all while spending a lot of time with the sexy local contractor.
About: What do you need to know? It’s a Hallmark movie starring, of course, Lacey Chalbert! I asked AI how much Lacy Chalbert makes for one of these movies and they said half a mil! By my estimation that makes her a billionaire twice over. Co-writer Delondra Mesa wrote on one of my favorite underappreciated TV shows, Black Summer.
Writers: Delondra Mesa and Duane Poole
Details: A cool 85 minutes

As many of you know, I’ve been asking for Blood & Ink participants to e-mail me with an update on where they are with their scripts. I’m happy to report that most writers are doing well. They’re at least halfway through their first draft. So keep it up and keep writing!

One of those e-mails was from a concept I gave a rare “YES” to, immediately guaranteeing it entry into competition (I think I gave five “YESES” in total). That would be from the writer of, “It’s The Worst Time of the Year.” Here’s that logline if you’ve forgotten: “Two successful, single business women from the big city get trapped in a Hallmark movie nightmare where it’s always fall — but weirdly somehow also always Christmas. They’re forced to open a bakery, enter the pie contest, solve the weekly town murder, and date the impossibly hot plaid-wearing widower — all while trying to find a way to escape before increasingly aggressive townspeople trap them in this hellscape, force them to give up their lives and drink pumpkin spiced lattes….forever.”

I was trading e-mails with the writer when they told me they’d, of course, watched a ton of Hallmark movies for research. And to their surprise, they actually started liking them! But it was this line from our exchange, in particular, that caught my attention: “When you let go and embrace them for what they are, there is something very comforting about a movie with zero real world stakes or conflict.”

If there is one truism I’ve found in screenwriting, it’s that there has to be stakes. If there aren’t stakes, the audience can’t get emotionally invested. Because stakes are what create the “care” part of watching something. Stakes make things matter. If things don’t matter, then who cares what happens?

So, how is it, then, that these stakes-less Hallmark movies are so popular? Obviously, something works about the formula and I wanted to figure out how the one movie formula that didn’t include stakes was still able to keep its audience caring.

Hence, I decided to watch a Hallmark movie. You have to understand how momentous this occasion is. I’ve never watched one before. So, I asked the writer what their favorite Hallmark movie was and they gave me five options. I looked through them, comparing IMDB ratings. Winter in Vail clocked in with the highest score at a 7.0! That’s like a 13.9 if you’re scoring it as a regular movie. I was in. What follows may not only be the answer to great screenwriting. But the answer… to the universe.

Chelsea is a 30-something event planner in Los Angeles who gets passed up for a promotion and thinks it’s a sign that she needs to change careers. On that very same day, she receives a letter informing her that her Uncle passed away and left her a big house in Vail, Colorado.

Chelsea heads out there to feel things out for a few days, figuring she’ll fix the house up and sell it. That’s when she meets Owen, the impossibly hot contractor who seems to be everywhere in town. The two get off to a bumpy start when Owen chastises her for parking in a no parking zone.

Later, when Chelsea starts putting her Uncle’s house back together, she’s forced to hire Owen to help. The two immediately apologize for the way they acted and become fast friends, doing everything together, while Owen fixes up the house.

Owen also happens to be the son of the owner of a German restaurant in town that’s on its last legs. As it just so happens, Chelsea’s Uncle was the star pastry chef there who had a world-class apple strudel. But when he died, the recipe died with him and they haven’t had a strudel since.

When Chelsea later finds her uncle’s secret strudel recipe in an old photo book, she pitches the idea to Owen that they bring the strudel back. But who’s going to make it, Owen asks. We will! she replies.

Chelsea then calls upon her event planning background to put together… Strudelfest, which I’m beyond shocked wasn’t the title of the film. Strudelfest will unite the entire restaurant community to each make their version of a strudel and it will be a big fun event and, hopefully, bring people back to the restaurants and save Owen’s father’s place. Something tells me that, despite the odds being against them, it’s going to work out!

Did somebody say, “Strudel!?”

You know, I couldn’t possibly understand the appeal of these movies without having read the number one script from the Black List yesterday. But I’m really glad I did because it showed me EXACTLY why people love these movies.

Let’s take a quick look at the variables from each of these movies…

Best Seller

-Unlikable female protagonist
-Boring and mostly unlikable male protagonist
-A sad broken marriage.
-The only redeeming feature in the marriage is weird kink-filled sex
-Lots of unhappy people
-Tons of lying
-Infidelity
-Passive-aggressive attacks on your partner
-bitterness
-gossip
-people relishing in others lives being ruined

Winter In Vail

-Ridiculously likable female protagonist
-Incredibly likable male protagonist
-strong sexual chemistry
-Tons of happy people
-Everybody has good intentions
-Everybody helps each other out
-Characters go out and do fun things
-Celebration of family
-An overall happy experience

I mean when you break it down to brass tacks, it’s obvious why people like these Hallmark movies. If you go see Best Seller, you leave that movie feeling miserable about the world. If you see Winter In Vail, you leave feeling hope, happiness, and encouraged that people are, at their core, good. It’s almost scary how obvious it is that these movies do well.

HOWEVER…

I’m not sure I would’ve given the same marks to one of these films that scored a 6.0 on IMDB rather than a 7.0. I believe that these scripts are sneaky hard to write, maybe even more so than regular movies.

Why?

For the exact reason that the writer of It’s The Worst Time of the Year said. The stakes are low and there’s very little conflict. In fact, these movies seem to relish in the avoidance of conflict.

Again, their mission statement appears to be: Let’s make the audience feel good. And if people are double-crossing each other or being mean or getting in fights, that doesn’t leave you feeling good. There isn’t even a villain in this film!

So, where does the drama come from then?

And where does our interest come from when the drama is this light?

Well, the answer is: with good-old fashioned smart screenwriting.

There *are* some stakes to this plot. Owen’s father’s restaurant is on its last legs. It’s probably going to close down. The writers, therefore, make it a top priority to make sure we love Owen’s dad. We get an early scene where Chelsea meets him and he’s the nicest guy in the world. There’s also a slight sadness about him, since he knows that these are likely the last weeks of his restaurant.

Surprisingly, that can be enough to make us care about a story. We like the guy. We don’t want the guy to lose his restaurant. So we’re rooting for him, and everybody else, to save the restaurant!

And, actually, I think that’s the secret sauce to these movies. Everybody is so incredibly likable. They’re either nice, or funny, or helpful, or kind, or encouraging. They have each other’s backs.

This is the exact OPPOSITE of what we saw yesterday, when everyone was so unlikable. And what did I say? I said it is EXTREMELY hard to make a movie work when your main characters are unlikable.

So, the opposite would probably hold true as well, right? It should be EASIER to make a movie work if we *like* the main characters.

It’s funny because I thought that Owen was going to be more of an a-hole. And we were going to go the traditional route of him and Chelsea hating each other but he’s the only contractor in town, so she has no choice but to use him. But that’s not what happened. He was a little jerky in the first scene but from that point on, he’s super nice to her and she’s super nice to him. And it works!

Which leads us to the next secret ingredient on the Hallmark movie menu: Sexual Chemistry.

If you create two characters who we both like and we want to see them get together and then you make us wait to see them get together, that can work in a vacuum! You don’t need a great story around that if that part of the recipe is fire. You really don’t. People are captivated by two people who they want to see get together.

The mistake a lot of writers make is to have the two kiss (or do more) too early. And then most of that sexual tension disappears. They don’t make that mistake in Winter in Vail. They wait and wait and wait, ensuring that we stay until the very end because dammit we want to see these two officially get together!

These scripts really need that part to work because if it’s not working, it’ll shine a light on the lack of conflict in the story.

In the first act, we get a scene of Chelsea’s boss informing her that the big promotion she expected to get has been given to someone else. Her boss isn’t mean about it. But we don’t like her because she seems oblivious to the fact that Chelsea is devastated.

So, later, when she decides to quit, I was expecting a scene where she revels in telling her boss to take this job and shove it. Just to get back at her a little. The writer even sets the scene up for us, showing Chelsea approach her boss and ask to speak to her. But we never see that scene. We cut to afterwards, where she’s cleaning out her desk.

I thought that was a strange choice until later, when I got a better feel for how these Hallmark movies work. They don’t want to show any meanness, any spitefulness. And that’s tough as a writer because you’re leaving conflict-filled home-run scenes on the table. Taking that away from the writer is like taking away half his bat.

Which is why, again, you need to make the sexual chemistry stuff between the two romantic leads perfect. If that works, we’re not demanding a ton of conflict in the rest of the scenes. The conflict is taken care of through the unresolved sexual tension.

I’ll have to see one of the lesser Hallmark movies before I understand where the flaws in this formula are located. But based on this movie alone, I thought it was pretty freaking entertaining. And it was nice to feel happy after a movie for once. Which I’ll be ruining later tonight when I watch Frankenstein. :)

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Protagonist likability solves a ton of your problems as a screenwriter.

Time to review the 2025 Black List’s best script!

Genre: Drama
Premise: (from Black List) In New York’s literary scene, a struggling writer, pressured by her famous novelist husband to have a baby, pens a tell-all article that goes viral. This sparks a dangerous battle of seduction, manipulation, and betrayal in the public and private spheres.
About: The 2025 Black List just came out last week. This was the number one script on the list with 48 votes. Details on the project are scarce, but with Jason Reitman attached as producer and a female writer with a raw, unfiltered voice, it suggests Matisse Haddad may be getting positioned as a potential “next Diablo Cody.” Cody’s “Juno” was famously celebrated heavily in one of the first Black Lists.
Writer: Matisse Haddad
Details: 99 pages

If you’re going to write an unlikable lead, then let’s go FULL UNLIKABLE with the casting!

I’ve spoken so much about the Black List that I don’t know if I have anything more to say, lol. As flawed as it is, it’s still the best list we’ve got for highlighting the best screenplays of the year. And it’s going to stay that way until I find the time to read all 350 scripts that the industry circulates every year.

I don’t know much about this writer other than she’s had one other script on the Black List last year that sounded very “Substance-y.” I don’t think I ever reviewed it. So this is going to be my introduction to Matisse Haddad.

Best Seller follows a 30-something New York married couple, Anya and Chris, both of whom are writers. Chris is the more successful of the two. He has several best sellers. He also teaches writing at Columbia University. Anya, meanwhile, writes fluffy articles. She occasionally writes books but nobody takes them seriously.

One night, when Chris stresses that they aren’t getting any younger and he wants to start a family, Anya writes an article about her husband called “Mommy or Me?” In it, she basically vents about her marriage and makes her famous author husband look really bad for wanting her to get pregnant. Even worse, she didn’t warn him ahead of time. So, when the article goes viral, Chris finds himself dealing with the fallout.

After speaking to his livid editor, Chris decides to write a counter-article which, just like Anya with him, he doesn’t show her ahead of time. And that article attempts to rebuild his reputation, all while dishing out a few secrets about his wife as well (she lied about graduating grad school!).

Their friends and family think they’re ridiculous (join the club!) and tell them to stop doing this cause it’s only hurting both of them. So they decide to joint write an article for The New Yorker to hash things out.

Amongst their viral feud, the two go to a lot of literary parties and talk it up with a bunch of jealous aspiring authors who enjoy gossiping. There’s a lot of gossip in this script for you gossip hounds! They’re also each tempted by hot people who aren’t their partners. Oh and, oddly, 5% of the script covers their kinky sex life, which feels like it was thrown into the script at the last second over a flurry of weekend writing.

Anya decides to cheat with the guy she’s flirting with, after which she finds out she’s pregnant. She threatens Chris, who she caught trying to kiss the person he was flirting with, that she’s going to abort the baby if he so much as looks at her sideways.

Soon after, the two get in a huge fight during which their large dog gets involved and bites off Chris’s fingers. Chris freaks out because this means he may never be able to write again (he must not have a computer with a microphone). The two decide to get separated and the last 15 pages of the script montages its way through Anya’s pregnancy until we get to THE END.

So, do we have the next Diablo Cody here?

In the now-immortal response to my first Blood & Ink logline pitch…

No.

You could make the argument that Matisse Haddad’s voice is unique, though, which is probably why her script finished number one on the list.

The problem is that that voice is so depressing.

Observing this relationship is so sad. And neither of the characters are very likable, especially Anya.

You’re putting yourself behind the 8 ball if you’ve got a sad script with unlikable protagonists. It’s very hard to make that work.

And what’s also a problem is that the concept is weak. An article “write-off” against your partner? Movies are supposed to be larger than life. This concept barely feels like it’s larger than a month.

But Matisse doesn’t stop there in making things difficult for herself. She’s also writing about writing! Which is inherently boring. It’s not that it can’t be done. We were just discussing Rob Reiner’s Misery the other day. One of the greatest horror movies ever written. And that was about writing.

But to presume that, in this day and age of TikToks and Instagram and Twitter and Youtube, that some written article is going to take over the world and everyone’s going to be talking about it… I can’t remember the last time that happened. The early 2000s maybe?

The script is really a tale of two halves. The first half struggles mightily because of the issues I just mentioned. Weak concept. Unlikable characters. Boring subject matter. And a plot that goes nowhere.

I kept waiting for a plot development that actually mattered. Instead, I got, “Let’s write an article together!” That’s when I mentally checked out. I knew the script couldn’t recover after such a weak creative choice.

Funny enough, Matisse ditches all this silly “viral article” stuff for the second half of the screenplay and just focuses on the fallout of the dissolving marriage. That was the best part of the script because it was the most honest. But, again, because these characters were so unlikable, you didn’t care.

And they kept becoming more unlikable by the scene!

When you have a wife who deliberately goes out and seeks sex from some dude she wants to bang, she finds out she’s pregnant, then comes back and screams at her husband that she can’t wait to abort the baby — I mean how do I even keep reading after that? We all detest this woman at this point, right?

Writing characters is a funny thing. Because you can take two routes. Route 1 is to write a character as honestly as you possibly can and never worry about how they come off. The idea with writing a character this way is that, hopefully, because the character is so authentic, other like-minded people will see themselves in that character. And there’s no doubt in my mind that that’s how Matisse is writing Anya.

And I won’t say that can’t work. I loved After The Hunt because Julia Roberts’ character was written exactly that way. And I understood her character, even though she wasn’t inherently likable. And I’m sure that that’s exactly why some of you hated the character. Cause there was nothing about her that was likable.

Which leads us to Route 2: Be aware of how the audience sees people and create characters with traits that make the audience like them. What I’ve found is that the more serious the writer, the less interested they are in writing these characters. Because they don’t want to be inauthentic.

But there’s a cost to that. Which is that you have may have created a character who’s so unlikable that nothing in your story will matter because we’ve already decided we don’t like the person taking us on that journey. And that’s the case here. Anya is a horrible person and I hated her.

But even if I liked her, I’m not sure the script could’ve been salvaged. There are so many things working against it – the biggest of which is that there’s nothing in this concept that says: this needs to be a movie. This is something that happens every day in the world. Relationships fall apart. And the sorta-viral-article thing is just not big enough or interesting enough.

With that said, the script should find some fans, particularly among a New York–based, liberal, literary-minded female audience. But outside of that specific demo, I’m not convinced readers are going to find this concept or subject matter palatable.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I’ve discovered that when scripts have these long stretches where people can just hang out in bars, or coffee shops, or parties, and chat, the script is in trouble. Cause what that means is that there’s not enough plot to keep the story moving. In any feature screenplay, your characters should never have time to just hang out. Maybe ONCE in the first act before the shit hits the fan. But even then, that scene should be setting up parts of the story. There were too many scenes here of people just hanging out and chatting without the story going anywhere. It took an already weak premise and further weakened it.

Note: Please use the comments section to share the scripts you liked and disliked from the 2025 Black List. This will make it easier to separate the wheat from the chaff. And it would help me, as I would really prefer to review the good stuff over the bad.

And a popular show reminds us of the power of a classic screenwriting tip

This whole ‘Hollywood is dying narrative’ is sillier than a candy cane cobbler.

Trust me, if Hollywood disappeared tomorrow and all we had were TikTok shorts and Youtube conspiracy videos, our society would implode.

You know, a while back, I asked myself, “Why do I care so deeply about movies? Why do I want to write them, produce them, devote my life to them?” The answer that came back: I want to bring entertainment to people.

Most people’s lives are hard. They’re paying high rent and higher mortgages, covering never-ending bills and taxes, dealing with health issues both minor and serious. They worry about family. They’re stressed at work. Their relationships are unstable, exhausting, and unpredictable.

Movies and television matter because they offer relief from that. At their best, they provide a chance to escape. And when they’re done really well, they provide hope! The most powerful heroes we meet in these stories are the ones who get knocked down repeatedly yet stand back up to fight again. It’s almost impossible not to root for them.

Those characters remind people that they can fight too. That the obstacles and depressions in their lives aren’t permanent, but rather temporary. If John McClane can survive a sealed Nakatomi Plaza, Nazi-adjacent terrorists, crawling over broken glass barefoot, and a couple of one-on-ones with Hans Gruber, then maybe I can get back on the horse after getting fired from my job.

I admit we’re going through a rough patch in Hollywood right now. But that’s mainly because the industry went all-in on superhero movies and now that they aren’t making money anymore, Hollywood’s having a tough time pivoting. And I get it. We convince ourselves that it’s better to keep fixing up that old car than buy a new one. But it’s time for Hollywood to buy a new car.

And what’s cool is, YOU GUYS get to influence what car they boy. Often “what’s next” is determined by some unexpected hit movie. That’s what signals the town that, “This is what audiences want next!” And then, in classic Hollywood style, they go all in. So, it’s up to the people who read this site to challenge their imagination and try to see the future. What do you think people want that currently isn’t available? If you can answer the question, write a script about it.

You want to know what I think the next big lane is going to be? I think it’s going to be big-budget sci-fi. Cause sci-fi hasn’t been good lately. It’s been wrapped inside of Marvel movies, where it’s mostly become bastardized. As a result, there haven’t been a lot of great sci-fi movie options. Dune, maybe. But that’s it.

If somebody could come up with a really original sci-fi take, the way Star Wars felt brand new in 1977 and The Matrix felt brand new in 1999. That could mark the next big trend in Hollywood. Cause I don’t think this Supergirl movie is going to save the superhero industry. It just doesn’t look unique enough.

Okay, it’s time to talk Pluribus Episode 7!

I think I’ve finally figured this show out.

When you create a show, it’s important to have a “North Star,” which is a metaphor for a direction you can always go towards when you’re lost.

You can do this in feature writing as well, but it’s more important in television because the story is so sprawling. It goes on for years. So it’s easy to get lost. And when shows fall apart, it’s usually because they didn’t have that north star guiding them.

I figured out the north star for Pluribus.

It’s: SHOW DON’T TELL

Never has that been more evident than in the most recent episode, Episode 7.

The episode is, sort of, a two-hander. The “hive” have long since left Carol after she nearly killed one of them. This leaves Carol on her own and that means she’s got to come up with things to do during her day. So she works on her golf game from the top of a skyscraper. She steals a bunch of high-grade fireworks and lights them up at night.

Concurrently, one of the only other 12 people who hasn’t been infected by the hive, Manousos, begins this long trek from deep in South America, to get to Carol. Manousos HATES the hive even more than Carol does and, therefore, despite their constant attempts to fly him to New Mexico, he ignores them and continues to drive north, eventually ditching his car because he has to trek, on foot, through hundreds of miles of jungle.

At first, I hated this episode. For 25 minutes, we see Carol playing golf and lighting fireworks, as well as Manousos driving through the South American countryside. There is little to no dialogue. It’s all visuals. And because of that (because there was no drama) I actually turned it off after those 25 minutes, deciding to finish it the next night.

The second half was much better. For Manousos, he has a clear flaw, which is that he refuses to listen to anybody, regardless of his own well-being. And what’s kind of interesting about the episode is that that’s similar to what Carol is going through. She doesn’t want help from these people. She doesn’t want to be around these people. So it’s a theme that’s guiding the episode.

Manousos’s storyline kicks into high gear when he reaches the edge of the jungle he has to trek on foot. Several of the hive-mind humans step in front of him just as he’s about to begin the trek and warn him that there’s basically zero chance he’ll survive. Manousos, being stubborn, disregards their advice.

This is a great dramatic setup that any writer can use. You tell the audience: If your hero chooses to go forth, he will die. Now you’ve got our full attention. With the beginning of the episode, Manousos was just driving. There was no drama. With Carol, she was just existing. There was no drama. The warning from the hive-mind finally infused the script with some drama. We had to watch to see if Manousos would somehow survive a 100 mile trek through the most inhospitable place on the planet.

It was around this time that this “north star” guiding principle became clear to me.

Vince Gilligan is very big on SHOW DON’T TELL.

And, of course, this has always been some of the most popular screenwriting advice you’d get. For good reason. There’s something about characters telling us something that doesn’t resonate the way it does compared to when we see it with our own eyes.

There’s this moment in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan are trying to buy passage off of Tattooine from Han Solo and Han asks for this obscene amount of money: 10,000 republic credits. Luke gets pissed off, replying, “Ten-thousand?? We can almost buy our own ship for that.” “Yeah but who’s going to fly it, kid,” Han replies. “You?” “You bet I can, I’m not such a bad pilot myself.”

And that’s it! That’s the only information we get about Luke Skywalker being a pilot before he’s tasked with taking on the Death Star at the end of the movie. And most people never pick that up when they watch the movie for the first time. Why? Because it’s just words. And you would think that George Lucas would know that: how much more powerful showing is. So why didn’t he SHOW Luke Skywalker flying a ship instead of telling us? It would’ve been a much better setup for the ending.

Guess what?

He did.

In the original rough cut, Lucas shows Luke piloting a ship. But they had to cut it for time.

The point is, “SHOW DON’T TELL” has been around forever and you should always be trying to integrate that mantra into your storytelling.

WITH THAT SAID…

You can take it too far. Just like any screenwriting advice. And I think that’s what Gilligan is doing by making SHOW DON’T TELL his north star in Pluribus.

Because what we ultimately learn in this episode – that Carol is insanely lonely and has nothing to do, and Manousos has to chart a path 3000 miles north – is told completely via “SHOW DON’T TELL.”

And it gets tedious.

Audiences are more savvy than you think they are and they pick up on things quicker than you think they will. You could’ve shown Carol in her cul-de-sac street, looking bored out of her mind, shooting fireworks, and conveyed her loneliness from that scene alone. You didn’t need the golf stuff.

Concurrently, did we need 10 minutes of “show don’t tell” driving from Manousos to convey how long his journey was? No. You could’ve gotten there in half the run-time with the same effect.

Now, I will say this: Both of the payoffs for these long “show don’t tell” storylines were strong. (Spoilers) We see Carol paint some mysterious lines on her cul-de-sac, only to later see Zosia show up at her door and Carol run to her and embrace her, breaking into tears. It’s a great “show don’t tell” payoff of just how lonely she was. And then when we pan up from them, we see what Carol’s street painting said, which was the message: “Please Come Back.” Another “show don’t tell” payoff.

For Manousos, he predictably becomes dehydrated and physically unstable in the jungle, ultimately slipping and severely injuring himself. He eventually passes out, but before doing so, sees the faint outline of a helicopter above him.

So, what’s the point to all this? Gilligan is perfectly fine living by the show don’t tell and dying by the show don’t tell. He’s determined to tell this story through actions and imagery as much as possible, and to only use dialogue when it’s necessary.

I think it gets him trouble. There are too many slow sequences in this show. And no matter how much showing not telling is going on, it can’t save elongated stretches of story. So, use show don’t tell when it makes sense. But don’t over-rely on it. Sometimes, the best course of action is a character explaining things or talking to someone else. The hive-mind people warning Manousos before he enters the jungle is the perfect example. If Gilligan would’ve tried to “show don’t tell” that moment, we wouldn’t have felt nearly as much fear and danger for Manousos, which would’ve lowered the dramatic tension considerably.

Did any of you watch the latest episode?

What did you think?

Or will be in the next 60 minutes

Talk about an early Christmas present!

But I feel less like the kid and more like the parent agonizingly wrapping six thousand oddly shaped gifts.  That’s because I just spent 5 obscenely frustrating hours doing some backend work on my newsletter so that I can end all the issues for those of you not receiving it. But I’m going to need your help. This newsletter will probably end up in SPAM or PROMOTIONS today. Make sure to drag that e-mail into your primary Inbox and, if your e-mail service asks you if you want all future Scriptshadow e-mails going directly to that box from now on, say “Yes.”

Onto the final newsletter of the year where I give you a roadmap for how to break into Hollywood in 2026. I make it clear for every type of writer. There’s also some Osculum Infame talk about dealing with financiers. A look back at one of the most exciting spec sales in Hollywood history. There’s a Blood & Ink update. Another Derek Kolstad project sale. And there’s a script review from the writer of one of my favorite scripts ever.

So check it out! And if you’re not on the list, e-mail me with the subject line: LIST! And I’ll send you the newsletter.

Enjoy!

I’m still on my Staycation, so I don’t know if I’ll get to my annual breakdown of each and every Black List logline. But I wanted to get this up here so that everybody could have a chance to discuss it. Here is the list!

BEST SELLER by Matisse Haddad
In New York’s literary scene, a struggling writer, pressured by her famous novelist husband to have a baby, pens a tell-all article that goes viral. This sparks a dangerous battle of seduction, manipulation, and betrayal in the public and private spheres.
AGENT: Independent Artist Group (Nick Beldoch, Jessica Zou)
MANAGEMENT: Bellevue Productions (John Zaozirny, Zack Zucker)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Peter Rice, Jason Reitman

EQUITY by Ward Kamel
After an ambitious pharma founder sells a portion of himself to a charismatic billionaire magnate, his world spirals into a high-stakes battle to buy back control of his company, his future, and his life.
MANAGEMENT: Range Media Partners (Alain Carles, Andrew Nallathambi)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Killer Films, Vertigo

RUSH by Read Masino, Cassidy Alla
When a college student is sexually assaulted by a frat guy who faces no consequences, she and her best friend rush his fraternity undercover to get revenge – only to become the unlikely stars of Delta Iota Kappa’s pledge class and get in way too deep.
AGENT: United Talent Agency (Anna Flickinger, John Kaiser)
MANAGEMENT: Masino – Artists First (Haley Jones, Casey Neumeier) / Alla – Mosaic (Drew Schenfield)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Berlanti/Schechter Films

UNTOUCHABLE by Julian Silver, Reiss Clauson-Wolf
The true exploits of Eliot Ness during his hunt for the “Torso Murderer,” a serial killer whose bloody reign terrorized 1930s Cleveland.
MANAGEMENT: Fourth Wall Management (Russell Hollander)

MINNOW by Zach Strauss, Chris Silber
When her sister goes missing, Minnow, a seemingly troubled woman, goes to extreme lengths to hunt down the mysterious man who took her. The disturbing truth goes beyond just one missing girl, and nothing—including Minnow—is as it seems.
AGENT: Strauss – Verve (Nicky Mohebbi, Isaiah Williams, Kelly Devine) / Silber – United Talent Agency (Jordan Lonner)
MANAGEMENT: Strauss – Entertainment 360 (Geoff Shaevitz, Evan Silverberg)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Thunder Road, Parallel 42

FIXATION by Siena Butterfield, Erika Vázquez
A couples therapist is drawn into a dangerous triangle of lust, lies and manipulation when she begins an affair with a stranger—who turns out to be the husband of her new client.
AGENT: Gersh (Jonathan Martin)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Josh Goldenberg)
STUDIO: New Regency
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Made Up Stories

BUILDING BOWIE by Alan Fox
In a near-future obsessed with AI generated nostalgia, a repressed droid wrangler is assigned to build a David Bowie replica — but as the droid begins evolving beyond its programming, the wrangler must confront the creative dreams she buried, and decide whether to protect her job or risk everything to reclaim her voice.
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Faisal Kanaan)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: A/Vantage Pictures

LEVERAGE by Joe Ferran
After a high-profile murder threatens a multi-billion dollar hostile takeover, an embattled Wall Street titan emerges as the prime suspect and must win a war of perception in order to protect her empire at all costs.
MANAGEMENT: Empirical Evidence (Derrick Eppich)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Empirical Evidence, Imagine

UNTITLED EROTIC TEEN FAN FICTION MOVIE by Morgan Lehmann
Delaney Pitts is a nerdy, teenage virgin who has a secret online life as an erotic fan fiction author. But when a publisher tasks her with writing a book about her (non-existent) high school love life, she’s forced to team up with a top expert in the field: the slutty quarterback of the football team.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Ilana Goren, Anna Jinks, Jacob Schiff)
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Harry Lengsfield)
STUDIO: A24, Ley Line
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Fruit Tree, Ley Line

ALPHA by Halil Ozsan
A mild-mannered American analyst climbs the ranks of a ruthless London investment firm, only to discover a horror more frightening than the industry itself: the insatiable monster awakening within him.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Trevor Astbury, Drew Leffler)
MANAGEMENT: Aperture Entertainment (Adam Goldworm)
STUDIO: Netflix
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Aperture Entertainment, Safehouse

WEST COAST LIVING by Sam Lifshutz
When a mysterious van settles outside a middle-class couple’s home, a simple noise complaint unleashes a relentless campaign of psychological warfare and escalating violence.
MANAGEMENT: RAIN (Barney Slobodin)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: CatchLight Studios

ET AL by Paul Levitt
When a husband and wife research team — along with their graduate students — travel to a remote, abandoned village to study the aftermath of a mysterious mass disappearance, their scientific investigation quickly unravels into one of unexpected paranoia and terror.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Jonas Brooks)
MANAGEMENT: 3 Arts Entertainment (Luke Maxwell)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Mortal Media

DO IT YOURSELF by Liv Auerbach, Daisygreen Stenhouse
Tom and Helen Hempel, hosts of a wildly popular home renovation show, are America’s favorite couple. When Tom dies in his mistress Melody’s bed, polar opposites Helen and Melody decide to move his body home to conceal the scandal. What could go wrong?
MANAGEMENT: Auerbach – Untitled Entertainment ((Delaney Morris, Morgan Singer, Jason Weinberg) / Stenhouse – Kings Peak Entertainment (Alex Platis)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: PictureStart

INCIDENTS by William Gillies
A woman searches for answers after surviving a mysterious abduction.
AGENT: United Talent Agency (Riley MacDonald, Geoff Morley)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Josh Goldenberg, Michael Wilson)
STUDIO: Fox Searchlight
PRODUCTION COMPANY: House Productions

RIDING HURT by Buck Bloomingdale
A former rodeo star, caught between his criminal past and a fragile shot at redemption, is drawn into a dangerous run of heists and betrayals while trying to find a way back to his family.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (PJ Picon)
MANAGEMENT: Range Media Partners (Michael Kagan, Andrew Nallathambi)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: range Media Partners, Teton Ridge

UNICORN by Grady Wood
When a tech mogul and his wife invite a third into their marriage for a weekend away, their sexually charged celebration devolves into a cat and mouse game of deception.
MANAGEMENT: Artists First (Corrine Aquino, Haley Jones)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Artists First

WILD PALMS by Ellis Bahl
An ambitious grifter and a seasoned reptile hunter form an unlikely partnership to exploit Florida’s exotic wildlife for profit, but their risky black-market ventures lead them into a world of danger, betrayal, and life-altering consequences.
MANAGEMENT: Empirical Evidence (Derrick Eppich)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Iconoclast, Alejandro De Leon, David M. Helman

BLACKOUT by Kevin Yang
When eco-terrorists attack Los Angeles’ power grid and orchestrate a cascading citywide blackout, a jaded former Secret Service agent and a brilliant but unassuming engineer must fight their way across the metropolis – in the dark – to restore power before the city collapses.
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Steve Yurovsky )

LETTERED MEN by Cole Maute
A group of fraternity brothers wake up after a night of partying nobody can remember, to find a dead body in the basement. It’s the fraternity president’s ex-girlfriend. Each of the brothers has equal cause, evidence stacked against them, and lack of alibi.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Seth Parker, Shannon Smith)
MANAGEMENT: Heroes & Villains (Aaron Lipsett)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Rough House

ALTER by SK Dale
In a secret military lab, a neuroscientist uses cutting-edge technology to rewire the mind of a psychopathic killer, forcing her own memories onto him in the hopes to trigger empathy. But as their minds intertwine, buried truths claw to the surface, plunging them both into a psychological battle where the boundaries of sanity begin to blur.
AGENT: Gersh (Dave Alexander, David Gersh)
MANAGEMENT: Artists First (Louis Heinberg, Peter Principato, Brian Steinberg)

EARLY ACTION by Sophie de Bruijn
Two parents who go to extreme lengths to get their son into his dream college – even if it means manufacturing a traumatic experience for him to write about in his admissions essay.
MANAGEMENT: Anonymous Content (Collin Litts)
STUDIO: Apple
PRODUCTION COMPANY: The Walsh Company

FLAMER by Greg Levine
In his final week at wilderness camp, fifteen-year-old Aiden faces bullies, shifting friendships, and an overwhelming crush in a turbulent reckoning with his identity. Based on the acclaimed graphic novel of the same name.
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Julie Oh

FROSTBITE by Michael Jones
There are 300 frozen bodies on the way to the summit of Mt. Everest. For blind climber Lucas Mills, he can still hear them. A survival horror experience on Everest.
AGENT: Paradigm (Varun Monga, Ethan Neale, Matt Snow)
MANAGEMENT: Anonymous Content (Ian McKnight)

OUT OF THE HOLLOW by Zak Rizzo
In need of funds to pay for his father’s medical care, Danny Locascio enlists his mercurial best friend Rusty in a series of jewel store robberies. However, the pair soon find themselves in the crosshairs of both the FBI and local organized crime, all while old secrets unravel and threaten to change their lives forever.
AGENT: William Morris Endeavor (Max West)
MANAGEMENT: Navigation Media Group (Matt Rosen)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Range Media Partners

THE PAROLE OFFICER by Mike McGrale
A parolee looking to stay on the straight and narrow is seduced by a mysterious woman into a drug-fueled one-night stand, violating the rules of his parole. That woman turns out to be his newly appointed parole officer, who unleashes a plan to blackmail him into committing an escalating series of crimes or else he’ll be sent back to prison for the rest of his life.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Drew Leffler, Adam Perry)
MANAGEMENT: Heroes & Villains (Aaron Lipsett)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Imagine Entertainment, HalleHolly

THE WAFFLE HOUSE INDEX by Andrew Nunnelly
The following three things are true: 1. The WAFFLE HOUSE INDEX is a metric used by FEMA to measure the severity of a natural disaster. 2. Jane works the graveyard shift at her local Waffle House. 3. There’s a storm coming.
AGENT: Buchwald (Tim Patricia)
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Tracy Kopulsky, Erick Mendoza)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Plan B

BAD MEMORIES by Julian Simpson
An infamous investigator of the unexplained phenomena and a highly skilled audio repair engineer work together to solve a very perplexing case file.
AGENT: Gersh (Dave Alexander, Jonathan Martin, David Rubin)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Andrew Murphy)

DON’T DO 72 by Kryzz Gautier
A night janitor is warned never to clean the 72nd floor of a corporate high-rise, but when a coworker disappears, she breaks the rule…only to discover something ancient and watching, lurking just beyond the glass.
MANAGEMENT: Navigation Media Group, Zero Gravity (Matt Rosen, David Romero)

GEEZERS by Richard Martin
After surviving a prom night massacre over 50 years ago, Alice’s golden years are interrupted by a copycat killer terrorizing her small retirement community…

LET’S BE FRIENDS by Mia Karr
An awkward 30-something woman on a quest for new friends thinks she’s hit the mother lode when she’s invited on vacation by a seemingly perfect group of lifelong besties – but she instead finds herself on the beach weekend from Hell, as the group’s co-dependent dysfunction becomes the least of their worries.
AGENT: Independent Artist Group (Grace Burford)
MANAGEMENT: Navigation Media Group (Matt Rosen)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Premeditated

LIANA by Cesar Vitale
An overly ambitious young woman’s obsession with a notorious hedge fund manager leads to her increasingly disturbing behavior in a quest to get close to, and ultimately take down, her idol.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Adam Perry, Connie Yan)
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Jennifer Au, Jennifer Levine)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Roth/Kirschenbaum

PINFALL by Sean O’Reilly
Lola, a former wrestler turned manager, finally sees her chance for a big break when she discovers a once-in-a-generation talent—only to risk not just her shot at success, but the people she cares about most, when the brutal world of professional wrestling begins to take its toll.
AGENT: Verve (Nicky Mohebbi, Sara Nestor, Rich Rogers)
MANAGEMENT: 42 (Doorie Lee, Jev Valles)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Temple Hill

REVENGE BODY by Devon Kerr
Inspired by the COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO by Alexandre Dumas. Fifteen years after a high school prank ruined his life, a now-unrecognizable personal trainer sets his sights on destroying the lives of the group of former students responsible.
MANAGEMENT: Artists First (Brooke Shoemaker, Katie Zipkin Leed)

THE MILKMAN by Lucas Kavner, Dylan Dawson
After his beloved cow is senselessly killed, a peaceful dairy farmer becomes a vengeance-obsessed one-man wrecking crew, setting out through our modern, curdled world to take on a corrupt conglomerate and the violent enforcers who protect it.
AGENT: United Talent Agency (Strawn Dixon, John Kaiser)
MANAGEMENT: Dawson – Mosaic (Patrick Newman) / Kavner – The Gotham Group (Eric Robinson)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Davis Entertainment

THE TEXAN by Kevin Arnovitz
When a self-made Houston mogul takes a young, ambitious West Texas striver under his wing, he ignites psychological warfare between mentor and protégé over fortune, family, reputation, and life-and-death.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Drew Leffler, Adam Perry)
MANAGEMENT: Heroes & Villains (Aaron Lipsett)

ALEX ALERT by Donald Diego
Alex O’Hara is struggling through a divorce when everyone in Los Angeles County starts receiving emergency alerts on their phones, revealing the details of Alex’s depressing life. Unable to stop the alerts from coming, Alex decides to lean in and try to use the newfound accountability to turn his life around.
AGENT: William Morris Endeavor (Blake Fronstin, David Meese, Max West)
MANAGEMENT: Think Tank (Tom Drumm)
STUDIO: Sony/Columbia
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Big Name, The Detective Agency, The Walsh Company

AMERICAN MIDNIGHT by Connor McIntyre
When several bodies are found along the highways of the American Midwest, a divorced state trooper and her estranged FBI husband must work together to find a trucker murdering young women for his sick wife… a vampire.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Will Watkins)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Andrew Murphy)
STUDIO: Netflix
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Vertigo

CAPABLE PEOPLE by Matthew Stewart
While hosting a fundraiser for an election with a razor thin margin, a morally conflicted congresswoman and her staff desperately try to contain a ballooning scandal that threatens to destroy her career, her marriage, and the balance of power in Washington D.C.
MANAGEMENT: Range Media Partners (Jacob Snyder)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Range Media Partners

CUT OUTS by Isaac Louis Garcia
A detective whose mind is deteriorating after a tragic misstep becomes obsessed with an unexplainable case: unrelated people keep claiming that their bodies have been stolen from them, and they’ve been left stranded as someone else.
AGENT: Independent Artist Group (Joe Fronk)
MANAGEMENT: Heroes & Villains Entertainment (Joseph Cavalier)
STUDIO: New Line Cinema
PRODUCTION COMPANY: BoulderLight Pictures

INFESTATION by Chris Freyer
A suburban family’s life spirals into horror after their young son is bitten by a strange beetle, and begins transforming into a monstrous insect. As a massive infestation simultaneously infects their family home, the father realizes he must confront the darkness lurking in his past in order to save his son.
MANAGEMENT: Zero Gravity (Cam Cubbison, Elissa Friedman)

TRACE by Jackson Kellard
A forensic sketch artist’s life is upended when her latest composite of a serial killer looks identical to her husband of 6 years.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (PJ Picon)
MANAGEMENT: RAIN (Lucius Cary)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Blinding Edge Pictures, Range Media Partners

HOUSE OF TIME by Tommy White, Miles Hubley
When an eccentric billionaire invites five guests to an extravagant weekend at his secluded chateau, what starts as an elaborate time-travel game quickly turns deadly real. Or so we think…
AGENT: William Morris Endeavor (Olivia Burgher, Bash Naran)
MANAGEMENT: Writ Large (Michael Claassen, Noah Rosen)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Jo Henriquez, SK Global

LORDS OF THE DANCE by Greg Wayne
When a 35-year-old Chicago ditch digger gets the opportunity of a lifetime to represent his ancestral homeland at the world’s biggest music competition, he unleashes a blockbuster dance phenomenon that will make Ireland a global superpower and finally set his people free. Based on the true story of Riverdance.
MANAGEMENT: Mutiny (Ryan Casey)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Mutiny

MR. BLACKBURN by Alex Kavutskiy, Ryan Perez
A passionate inner city high school teacher discovers that he’s accidentally inspired his former students into a life of meaningless minimum wage work and insurmountable student loan debt. Together, they pick up a life of crime to pay off their debts and realize the American dream he had once promised them.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Bryant Barile, Joe Mann, Jacob Schiff)
MANAGEMENT: Artists First (Haley Jones, Peter Principato, Itay Reiss)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Hyperobject

NICK OF TIME by Patrick Pittis
While defending an unscrupulous billionaire in a landmark antitrust lawsuit, a tenacious young attorney begins to question his sanity as he unravels a time-bending secret – something from the past that could threaten his future.
MANAGEMENT: Navigation Media Group (Matt Rosen)

OH YOKO! by Allison Lee
Born in war-torn Tokyo, Yoko Ono forges her path as a groundbreaking modern artist in New York, but her life changes forever when she dives into a whirlwind romance with John Lennon — and becomes known as the “witch” who broke up the Beatles.
AGENT: Gersh (Mark Hartogsohn, Lee Keele)
MANAGEMENT: Night Drive Management (Jon Hersh)

CAPRICORN by Edwin Cannistraci
A married couple spice things up by starting a sexual relationship with a mysterious young woman, and it entangles them in a web of deception and danger.
AGENT: Gersh (Danny Toth)
MANAGEMENT: Bellevue Productions (John Zaozirny)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Talking Pictures

RENEGOTIATE by Mark Townend
A troubled FBI crisis negotiator finds himself stuck in a time loop, re-living the events of a suicide bombing and struggling to stop it before time runs out.
AGENT: Paradigm (Babacar Diene, Varun Monga)
MANAGEMENT: Bellevue Productions (Jeff Portnoy)
STUDIO: Lionsgate
PRODUCTION COMPANY: CineMachine, Range

SISTER by Lauren Kilbride
Sister Molly is not a Sister anymore – not after falling in love and leaving the convent behind. But two years later, when her relationship ends, she returns to the convent to figure out who she idolizes more: God, or her ex-boyfriend.

STANDBY by Derek Steiner
On her final voyage as a flight attendant, a woman finds herself trapped on a transpacific flight with a passenger who is adamant that they’re perfect together and will do everything he can to win her over.
AGENT: Gersh (Dave Alexander, Jimmy Cheng)
MANAGEMENT: Atlas Artists (Ethan Harari)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Dog Ear

THE BLACK ECHO by Peter Haig
After a hostage rescue mission goes wrong, an elite SWAT team is forced into a vast underground tunnel system — cut off and stripped of their tactical advantage by an enemy unlike any they’ve ever encountered, who’s turned the labyrinth into their killing field.
MANAGEMENT: Entertainment 360 (Kathleen Dow, Marc Mounier, Geoff Shaevitz)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: CineMachine, Parallel 42

THE PIRATE by Will Dunn
On the storm-tossed seas of the 18th Century, a fisherman infiltrates a murderous pirate warship.
AGENT: Verve (Nicky Mohebbi, Chase Northington, Adam Weinstein)
MANAGEMENT: Think Tank (Tom Drumm)
STUDIO: Amazon MGM
PRODUCTION COMPANY: 87North, On The Roam

ALTS by Seth Worley
After years of consequence-free time travel, a man, Guy, discovers his reckless behavior has created dozens of alternate versions of himself who all want him dead.
AGENT: United Talent Agency (Jason Burns, Jordan Lonner)
MANAGEMENT: Rise (Justin Letter)

CRUSH by John Fischer
When a woman goes for a solo hike in the Everglades and falls, she wakes up with a massive snake curled around her ankles, ready to slowly kill her.
AGENT: Verve (David Boxerbaum)
STUDIO: 20th Century Studios
PRODUCTION COMPANY: 1201 Films, Temple Hill Productions

GUYS WITH NO FRIENDS by Deb Kaplan, Harry Elfont
When four friendless, middle-aged men are pushed into a ‘man date’ by their fed-up wives, they stumble into a night of misadventures that leaves them bruised, bonded, and forever changed.
AGENT: Verve (Bryan Besser, Nicky Mohebbi)
MANAGEMENT: Entertainment 360 ( Jill McElroy, Geoff Shaevitz)
STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Safehouse Pictures

HEARTLAND EXPRESS by Trevor James
In rural Wyoming, a stressed-out single mom on the brink of an empty nest gets dragged into disastrous dates, honky-tonk nights, family blowups, and a new, possibly-fated romance — pushing her to discover that the hardest road to navigate is the one back to herself.

LAST STOP IN THE DESERT by Noah Sellman
A disgraced journalist visits a hippie commune to rekindle an old flame, but when a body turns up in the middle of his first acid trip, he takes it upon himself to investigate — even as the trip turns his search for truth into a kaleidoscope of clues, visions, and lies.

OBJECT PERMANENCE by Alessandra DiMona
Peter Donnely has it all: best selling novel, an impeccable home, tenured professor. More importantly, he and his wife, Jamie, are madly in love. When Jamie inconveniently disappears, his perfect life and devotion to his wife are put to the test as society and everyone around him rush to convict him of murder.
MANAGEMENT: Range Media Partners (Tanya Cohen, Jeff Barry)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Mariela Villa (Level Up)

PEACHES by Sarah Rothschild
Molly, a loveable mess, newly divorced, and drinking way too much, after one particularly reckless night, finds the unlikely lifeline she needs in Peaches, an enormous St. Bernard rescue dog.
AGENT: Verve (Parker Davis, Pamela Goldstein)
MANAGEMENT: Entertainment 360 (Susie Fox, Marc Mounier)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Temple Hill

SERPENT GIRL by Matthew Carnahan
When he wakes up naked by the highway, Bailey Quinn is only sure of a few things: He’s in a world of testicle pain, he’s tripping out of his head on peyote, and someone seems to have made a half-assed attempt at slashing his throat. He can’t for the life of him remember what happened—and then it all comes flooding back—the circus, the heist, the betrayal. And even though Bailey starts on a bloody bender for retribution, he winds up finding love and an unexpected state of grace.
AGENT: Verve (Adam Levine, Noah Liebmiller, Chris Noriega)
MANAGEMENT: Echo Lake (Dave Brown)

THE LIGHT FROM THE ARCADE by Derek Pastuszek
On a nostalgic hometown visit, a disillusioned dude is sucked into his favorite childhood arcade game, where he must team up with his teenage self to fight a horde of mind-bending monsters and find a way home…together, they’re forced to confront their past to save their future.
MANAGEMENT: Range Media Partners (Alain Carles, Andrew Nallathambi)

THE STAG AND THE BULL by Kelly Walker
Desperate to revive their marriage, a suburban couple invites a stranger into their bedroom only to discover that some fantasies can really kill the mood.
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Sean Perrone, Bill Zotti)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Barnstorm, Megamix, Mazo Partners

AMPHORA by Greg Jardin
A dramatic thriller that takes place over two parts of a man’s life.
MANAGEMENT: 3 Arts Entertainment (Harley Copen)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Jason Baum, Temple Hill

DEAD MAN’S ISLAND by Jordan Santacana
A pirate is marooned on a mysterious island, only to discover that he’s being stalked by a bloodthirsty creature.
MANAGEMENT: Alex Elliott
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Elliott Pictures

ENTERTAINING by Hannah Hafey, Kaitlin Smith
Cooking show superstar Celeste Bell and her upstart rival Josie Baker vie food media’s most coveted broadcast – Thanksgiving – over the course of a decade.
AGENT: Gersh (Eric Garfinkel)
MANAGEMENT: The Arlook Group (Jack Greenbaum)

HANDY MAN by Teddy Schenck
When a frustrated stay-at-home father in Brooklyn feels increasingly threatened by the charismatic handyman hired by his wife, their simmering rivalry escalates into a volatile battle of wills that threatens to unravel their families.
MANAGEMENT: Hopscotch Pictures (Sukee Chew)

KAMPF by Sang Kyu Kim
An actor from a hit medical show disappears for years before suddenly reappearing in history channel reenactments playing one role repeatedly: Joseph Goebbels. His reasons for such an odd professional choice remain unknown until he meets a young girl dying of cancer… through Make a Wish.
AGENT: Paradigm (Jonny Gutman, Devon Schiff, Bill Weinstein)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Mike Fera, Aaron Kaplan)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: 10 by Ten Entertainment

PLACE TO BE by Aimee Pham, Kai Sampadian
James, a good dad who flies a bit too close to the sun, hasn’t seen his kids in 10 years… but not by choice. When he decides to make his grand return at his daughter’s destination wedding weekend but no one recognizes who he actually is, James must fight to win his family’s trust so he can walk his daughter down the aisle.
AGENT: CAA (Eddie Lau)
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Brennan O’Donnell)

SUGAR FREE by Kirill Baru
When their sugar daddy and sugar mommy dump them to be together, a self-absorbed gold digger and a loveable slacker join forces to break up their exes and get back on easy street.
MANAGEMENT: Bellevue Productions (Jeff Portnoy, Kate Sharp)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Olive Bridge Entertainment

SUNLIGHT by Kit Steinkellner
A husband and wife’s marriage is tested when the husband is bitten by a bat and becomes a vampire.
AGENT: United Talent Agency (Marissa Devins, Dan Erlij, Abby Glusker, Amanda Hymson, Julien Thuan)
MANAGEMENT: Circle of Confusion (Josh Adler)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Mood Bath Pictures

THE SURVIVAL LIST by Tom Melia
Against her wishes, highbrow reality TV producer Annie is assigned to a new show hosted by macho survival expert Chopper Lane. However, when a shipwreck strands the two of them on a deserted island, Annie discovers Chopper is a fraud and knows nothing about survival, leaving her in charge of keeping them alive. Forced to work together, the two soon discover an unlikely chemistry.
AGENT: WME (Connor Armstrong, Max West)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Alex Lerner, Ben Neumann)
STUDIO: Lionsgate
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Marc Platt Productions, Nlake Lively

THE VALLEY OF HINNOM by Jacob Marx Rice
When a rudderless teenager in an extremist group goes undercover at a synagogue he’s plotting to bomb, he finds himself relying on the very people he is supposed to destroy.
MANAGEMENT: Night Drive Management (Jon Hersh)

VIENNA by Lindsay Michel
An interpreter at the US Embassy in Vienna must act quickly when she’s pulled into a late-night meeting between the American and Russian presidents and discovers that they are negotiating the outcome of a pre-planned nuclear war.
AGENT: WME (Connor Armstrong)
MANAGEMENT: Bellevue Productions (Kate Sharp)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Persons Attempting

WITH THE 8TH PICK by Alex Sohn, Gavin Johannsen
In the 1996 NBA draft, New Jersey Nets GM John Nash fights against his own organization and wants take an untested high schooler named Kobe Bryant
AGENT: Verve (David Boxerbaum, Adam Levine, Valarie Philips)
MANAGEMENT: Lit Entertainment (Kendrick Tan)
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Star Thrower