The villainous subject of the Number 5 script on the Black List

One of the nice things about the Black List is that it tells us where the industry is trending. These are the scripts causing managers and agents to sign writers. These are the scripts managers and agents are encouraging their writers to write. And since reps have a direct pipeline into what the studios (both large and small) are looking for, this means the scripts are giving you clues about what you should be writing yourself.

To help you out, I broke the scripts down into genres. It should be noted that the Black List doesn’t include “genre” on its list which makes guessing some of these scripts tough, especially if they’re crossovers. Whenever that was the case, I went with the more dominant genre inherent in the idea. For example, for “Max And Tony’s Epic One Night Stand,” which has this as its logline: “A disastrous Grindr hookup goes from bad to worse when a meteor unleashes a horde of aliens on New York and the two ill-matched men must depend on each other to make it through the night alive,” I went with “Comedy” over “Sci-Fi” because comedy is the dominant genre within the premise.

Okay, before I share the results, can you guess which genres finished at the top? The answers might surprise you. We’ll start with the lowest and go up from there.

Western – 0
Musical – 1
Romantic Comedy – 2
Children’s – 2
True Story – 4
Biopic – 5
Horror/Supernatural – 6
Action/Thriller – 7
Sci-Fi – 8
Thriller – 10
Drama – 11
Comedy – 17

Okay! What information can we gather from this tally? Let’s start at the bottom. I’m surprised there were no Westerns on this list! The Black List usually has a few of them every year. Westerns are a weird genre in that general audiences don’t like them much but people within the industry love them because they harken back to the Hollywood of old. It seems like everyone in the movie business wants to be involved in a Western at least once in their life. So that was a surprise.

I was also shocked that there were only two romantic comedies. I thought romantic comedies were making a comeback! For a while there, there was a new one every week on Netflix. But this may simply be a case of what Netflix wants and what cool industry voters want not always lining up. I do think most industry types feel that they’re above romantic comedies. Also, it’s hard to come up with a fresh rom-com idea with the formula being so generic. So maybe that’s why their recent resurgence wasn’t reflected in this year’s list.

Only four true story entries this time around! Feels like it was double that last year. Maybe the industry is getting “true storied” out. I can only hope. Also, we’ve got five biopics. Since we can all agree that biopics are evil, I am exceedingly happy about this development. As much as I detest both these categories – true story and biopic – I readily admit they are industry mainstays and will never go away. So if you have a passion for either, go and write it. That should be your approach to whatever you write, by the way. As long as you’re passionate about it, you’ll write something good. I’ve loved plenty of biopic screenplays where the writer was obsessed with the subject matter.

Horror is next with six entries, which seems about right. Horror is the most popular screenplay genre out there but most horror scripts tend to be silly and lack depth, which is probably why the Black List doesn’t reflect the industry ratio. They think of themselves as above it. Suffice it to say, there was only one social issues horror script on the list, which was surprising. That would be Shanrah Wakefield’s, Rabbit Season: “Supernatural horror about a woman stalked through a dark city park by the most monstrous manifestation of manhood during her walk home from her high school reunion.”

Next up we have Action-Thriller, which isn’t really a surprise. The industry is still obsessed with finding the next John Wick because if you can create one cool character with a gun, you can set yourself up for five movies over the next decade. It’s almost too tempting. If I were considering writing one of these, I’d focus less on the plot and instead on the main character. Try to come up with someone who’s really unique. Who’s odd or different or unexpected in some way. Most of these “John Wick” scripts have the same main character. He’s got a military or CIA past. He hung up his cleats. He’s a secret badass. Those elements are the obvious. Now you gotta come up with things about him that are not obvious. And no, making him a woman is no longer an acceptable twist.

Well, it just warms my heart that there are a full eight sci-fi scripts on the list. Sci-fi traditionally does well on the Black List. But they usually get around five entries. I’d guess that the uptick is due to the success of The Tomorrow War on Amazon. Everyone wants that cool new sci-fi concept. Between purposefully constructed time loops, killer sounds, saving soldiers in the afterlife, and curated VR deaths, maybe we’ve found some.

Thrillers remain right behind horror as the most written genre and it’s easy to understand why. Unlike horror, which requires special effects and therefore, money, thrillers don’t require anything other than a dead body. That makes them perfect for a cheap production. Sure, they’re not as marketable as horror. But they make up for it with their microscopic budget. Netflix is making a ton of these and they absolutely love them. Which is another great thing about the genre. You can go high-brow, like Gone Girl. Or you can go low-brow, like Deadly Illusions.

Next up we have drama. Now this category is a little misleading. When you think of drama, you think of Moonlight or The House of Fog. And I’ve included scripts like that in the tally. But drama can also be a catch-all genre for concepts that aren’t easy to label. For example, Lady Chrylon’s logline is, “Two rival graffiti artists engage in a series of street battles, culminating in an otherworldy duel after the art starts bleeding into the real world.” Is that a drama? I don’t know. I think it may be. So I put it in the drama category.

I only bring this up because I don’t want people to think that writing Nomadland is going to get you a lot of reads. Straight dramas are still a tough sell. Which is why you need to add some pizazz to them! Like this graffiti artist concept.

And finally, we have the surprise top category on the list: COMEDY! Or is it surprising? Something I learned a long time ago is that when the world is going through hell, write comedy. Yes, you all want to write deep meaningful existential narratives about how YOU SEE the pandemic, confident in the belief that your main character, Mossad, and his narration about his young sister who is on a ventilator, is going to bring Hollywood to its knees and leave the LA river overrunning with a city’s tears.

BALONEY!

All it’s going to do is bore us to death. You want to write about the pandemic? MAKE IT A COMEDY! I guarantee you you will get 100x the read requests from a pandemic comedy than from a pandemic drama. That’s why comedy did so well this year. People want to laugh. COMEDY IS BACK, BABY! Also, nothing beats a snappy comedy logline. They tend to have a significant advantage over their competition.

How bout you? Did you notice any trends in this year’s Black List? Share them in the comments section!

Also, continue to RANK YOUR BLACK LIST READS in the comments. If you liked something, tell us. If you hated something, tell us. It’ll let me know which scripts to review and which I can place on the back burner.

Today I review the Number 1 Black List script!

Genre: Drama
Premise: Under the cruel guidance of a mysterious coach, an ambitious high school wrestler struggles to become a state champion while battling a bizarre infection in his ear that both makes him dominant in his sport and threatens his sanity.
About: This is the number 1 script on the 2021 Black List! You can see my reaction to all 60 Black List loglines here. The writer, Daniel Jackson, recently won the 2021 Script Pipeline contest. He went to NYU’s Tisch for film school. And he writes for Thrillist.
Writer: Daniel Jackson
Details: 98 pages

I’m sure you’re all just as excited to get into this as I am so let’s not waste any time! A quick warning. There’s a fairly significant spoiler in the first act which I have to include in the plot summary so if you don’t want to know what happens, go read the script first!

14 year old 106 pound Adam Karr has just joined a new private school where he plans on becoming one of the only freshman wrestlers in history to win the state wrestling tournament. Adam immediately befriends fellow wrestler, and junior, Jason, who shows him the ropes.

Jason makes it clear that the team’s secret weapon is Volkov, a mysterious 70-something assistant coach who used to be in the Russian KGB where he learned all types of fighting styles. But he only coaches juniors and seniors. He’s never even looked at a freshman.

Determined to change that, Adam makes a plea to Volkov to teach him and Volkov agrees to give him a trial private lesson at his house. While the two are sparring, Volkov has a heart attack and dies. Adam runs out of the house, telling no one he was there.

In the following days, Adam starts hearing a voice in his ear (which has been infected from wrestling) and quickly figures out it’s the ghost of Volkov! Volkov’s ghost starts coaching him in his matches, telling him exactly when to move out of the way, or when to go for a tackle. With Volkov’s help, Adam starts destroying his opponents.

But soon Volkov starts coaching him in his love life (“Get rid of your girlfriend”) and social life (“Frame your best friend”) in an attempt to eliminate any distractions so that Adam will have a clear path to the state title. It seems that the more infected Adam’s ear gets, the more negative Volkov gets. Will Adam survive long enough to win state? Or will Volkov’s ear be his downfall?

The number 1 Black List script always brings with it high expectations and those expectations are probably unfair, since it’s hard enough to impress a reader with no expectations. The reality is that, these days, the majority of the writers on the Black List are amateurs. Some of you might push back on that since the writers all have representation. But representation doesn’t mean anything when you haven’t made any money with your writing.

I bring this up because it’s easy to go into these scripts thinking they’re going to redefine the medium. But the reality is that these writers are still figuring out how to be screenwriters. And that’s pretty evident in Cauliflower, an uneven screenplay that bites off more than it can chew (going with the ‘cauliflower’ theme here – roll with me).

There were two things that stood out in the script. (Spoiler) The first was the twist at the end of act one, when Volkov dies. I was so certain that Jackson was going to lean into the Mr. Miagi role with Volkov that I didn’t know what to do with myself when he suddenly died. It reinvigorated my interest in the script, making me excited to go into the second act.

The second choice I liked was inserting Volkov’s soul into Adam’s cauliflower-infected ear and turning it into a demented Obi-Wan Kenobi force ghost. One of the disadvantages writers have these days is that they’re competing against the biggest cinematic juggernaut in history – superhero IP. Every character we create seems tiny in comparison to a superhero trying to save the world.

Well, here, Jackson’s figured out a way to create an indie superhero. Adam’s superpower is his ability to know exactly what to do at exactly the right time. The ear’s voice tells him when to dodge, when to attack, when to pounce. It tells him the answers to his teacher’s history questions. It even tells him the right time to make a move on his girlfriend. It’s his own little spidey-sense.

But there were issues here I couldn’t get past.

The dialogue was a big stumbling block as much of it was on the nose. Here’s an example: “He gets me psyched up. When I listen to him, I feel like I can run through a brick wall.” I suppose you could argue that freshmen in high school don’t have the most sophisticated vocabulary. But you should always look to avoid cliche phrasing like “run through a brick wall.” As a writer, you want to come up with new stuff, not depend on the old stuff.

Another random example: “You’re lucky. You don’t even need to be coached. I watch you out there. It’s like God’s pulling the strings.” This was a line from Jason to Adam. We’ve got another cliche phrase: “It’s like God’s pulling the strings.” More importantly, this is a tell don’t show line. Writers write it when they don’t have confidence that they’ve done the job though the character’s actions. So they write a line of dialogue to drive it home. “You are the most amazing wrestler I’ve ever seen!” If you properly SHOW this, you never need a character to say it.

But things really start to get messy when you delve into Adam’s home life. To be at the top of any sport, you need your parents pushing you. It’s not like you’re voluntarily signing up for wrestling classes at age 10. It’s your parents who have to choose that and then commit you to it. Anybody here who’s been an athlete will tell you – the best kids in their sports always had parents who pushed them into that sport at a young age, made them practice an ungodly amount of hours every week, and usually got them tons of private coaching.

So for Adam’s parents to barely know he was on the wrestling team felt completely false. If he was this good, they would’ve been a part of that.

Then you had the private school angle. For reasons that weren’t made clear, Adam had always been in public school. Except for now, as his parents had just enrolled him in a private school. A private school that cost a lot of money. However, we’re also told that Adam’s father can’t find work. Why would you sign your son up for an expensive private school for the first time when one of you is unemployed? Logically, it made no sense.

We also have an awkward religious subplot. The family had either just become religious, or the parents were already religious and Adam wasn’t for some reason. But now Adam wanted to be religious and asks his parents if he could come to church with them. It wasn’t clear why he wanted to be religious or why he all of a sudden had an urge to go to church. I don’t know. The whole thing felt really loosey-goosey. It wasn’t clear who was religious, who wasn’t, how big of a role religion had played in the family up until now. None of it felt convincing. You can’t do that with religion. It needs to be clear where people stand.

Then, on top of that, you had this Youtuber Adam was obsessed with – Dirk Ironside. Sometimes Dirk Ironiside would appear in Adam’s ear and give him advice. Which was confusing because we’d already built this entire story around Volkov being in his ear. So we now have two ‘magical versions of people’ giving him advice? It felt unnecessarily complicated.

And then when we get to the ending, the main character has gone so insane that we don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. I’m not going to rant about this since I’ve spent way too much time over the years on it already. But my basic issue with it is that it allows you to cheat your way out of any corners you’ve painted yourself into. Amazing writers can sometimes get away with this (they did it in Black Swan, for example). But, like I said, there was so much messiness already that I didn’t trust the writer enough to take me down that path.

The script does end on one hell of a shocking image. And, like I said, I thought the Volkov stuff was interesting. But there were too many half-formulated ideas here. The bar for these scripts is Magazine Dreams. That’s the level of sophistication you’re competing against. In the end, I felt that Cauliflower was too messy.

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

What I learned: Use descriptive exaggeration to better convey a visual. You can always depend on the nuts and bolts way of describing something, of course. For example, if you’re describing your hero running, you can say, “He sprints as fast as he can.” And that will do. But if you want to drive the visual home, you’ll have to do better than that. That’s where descriptive exaggeration comes in. You’ll say something in such an exaggerated manner that it conveys a much more powerful visual. Here’s the way Jackson describes Adam running. “Sprinting as hard as possible. Like he’s trying to escape his own body.” When I read that, I FEEL how hard he’s running. Where as, with the more generic, “He sprints as fast as he can,” I don’t feel anything.

Note: For those confused, I originally posted this on Sunday, a full 12 hours before the Black List came out, as a holding spot. While we waited, I shared my top 10 movies of the year. That’s why you have this weird combination of “Best Movies of 2021” and “Black List 2021” in a single post. If you don’t care about my favorite movies of the year, just scroll down. :)

The Black List SHOULD be coming out tomorrow (Monday). Once it’s released, I will update this post with gobs of commentary. If anyone is looking for stuff to do in the interim, you can check out my RE-RANKING of the 2020 Black List, where I give you the TRUE rankings of all of last year’s scripts.

While we’re waiting for that, let’s talk movies!

Releasing West Side Story during a pandemic was an idea akin to opening up a gelato stand in Antarctica. Probably not the best idea. West Side Story was always going to be a hard sell but trying to get people to watch a dated musical in this environment? I could think of a few concepts that might’ve brought Spielberg more cheer. Hey, Steven, what ever happened to Robopocalypse? Pretty sure that would’ve made more than 10 mil.

The thing about Spielberg that made him into the mogul he is today is that he had a keen sense for knowing exactly what the masses wanted, a rare ability to always have his finger on the zeitgeist pulse. So you have to ask, with the disappointing box office of West Side Story, has that magical power finally passed Spielberg by? His last five movies before this were War Horse, Bridge of Spies, The BFG, The Post, and Ready Player One. Not exactly a glowing resume.

The funny thing is that this interception probably won’t go down on Spielberg’s stat card. West Side Story made 10 million dollars yet I’ve already read articles about how it’s beginning its awards run so it’s going to be around for awhile and remember The Greatest Showman? That made only 8 million its opening weekend before going on to gross 175 million so that’s exactly what’s going to happen to our movie, West Side Story! The pandemic is the best thing to ever happen to box office bombs. There’s so much spin available to studios these days, you could open your own dreidel company with it.

Considering the Black List is the ‘best of’ list for screenplays, I thought I’d give you my best of movies of the year. Normally, I would give this its own post. But let’s be real. 2021 has been a weird year for movies and when I looked at my list, I didn’t think it deserved its own post. With that said, there was one cool aspect about these films and that’s that a lot of them snuck up on me. That’s the best way to find a movie, in my opinion – when it comes out of nowhere. That was the case for most of these movies, in fact. Let’s take a look.

11) Bo Burnham’s “Inside” and The Lost Leonardo – I have a longstanding frustration with movie reviewers who include documentaries on their end-of-the-year lists. Documentaries aren’t real movies! So I’m going to compromise and squish my two favorite documentaries into one slot and put them at the bottom of the list. “Inside” is amazing for two reasons. Burnham is fearless when it comes to letting you inside of his brain. That makes for both an uncomfortable and exhilarating journey. Also, as a bonus, you’ll be humming half of his songs after watching. — I’m such a sucker for these art docus and “The Lost Leonardo” is probably the best art docu ever. This deep dive into how the art world prices things and how much they hide and manipulate the image of a particular painting is both educational and entertaining. Biggest lesson I learned from the movie? Never cross a billionaire Russian warlord.

10) Nobody – What I liked about Nobody was that it was a John Wick movie but if someone put the movie’s forehead on a bat, made them spin around 50 times, then forced them to run a 100 yard dash. There was an ‘off-kilter’ quality to Bob Odenkirk’s pursuit that made for a kooky hero’s journey. Even the fighting scenes (like the famous bus fight) were unique. And you need that uniqueness in a sea of clones.

9) Free Guy – Possibly the most Ryan Reynolds Ryan Reynolds movie of Ryan Reynold’s career. Fun little premise. Love that this was a naked spec. We haven’t had one of those in the Top 10 of the box office in at least a decade. And unlike West Side Story, Free Guy is the perfect movie to release during a pandemic as it’s an ideal escape. Two hours of feeling good. Sign me up.

8) The Beta Test – Not many people have heard of this one. It’s about a married Hollywood agent who gets an invitation in the mail saying someone wants to have an anonymous sexual encounter with him. Against his better judgement, he decides to do it, and then must suffer through the consequences of doing so. Shades of American Psycho. A very cool directing debut. The acting is a bit uneven but this one shocked me with how good it was.

7) Ghostbusters: Afterlife – Another movie I watched that was only interested in one thing (making you feel good). While I get the nostalgia criticism, I felt that the screenplay was tight and built well towards its climax. I thought it was funny. Podcast was my favorite movie character of 2021 (only half-joking). I didn’t know Reitman had it in him but this was good!

6) Malignant – That twist. THAT TWIST! I don’t know if I could ever watch this movie again because the first 90 minutes are so bad but THAT TWIST. I don’t think a movie has ever made my Top 10 on a twist alone but Malignant just did it.

5) Voyeurs – This may be a case of me being a fan of the voyeur subject matter. It could also be a case of me falling in love with Sydney Sweeney after White Lotus. Either way, this was a simple premise done well. And what do I always tell you guys? Keep it simple! One of the many benefits of doing so is that you keep your production budget low, which increases potential buyers. This entire movie was basically shot in two apartments.

4) Boiling Point – Was just talking about this the other day. A one-shot tension filled restaurant thriller. If your screenplay lacks tension, watch this movie right now then spend the next few ways deconstructing how every scene is packed with conflict. You’ll never write the same way again.

3) Bad Trip – The hardest I’ve laughed during a comedy in I don’t know how long. Taking the hidden-camera gimmick and integrating it into a cohesive narrative was genius. I still don’t know how they pulled some of this off. This movie was unforgettable.

2.5) Coda – Why 2.5? Cause I forgot to include it and, therefore, had to squeeze it in. A tear-jerker that actually turns you into a biological waterfall. Wholly unique. Impossible not to fall in love with the family. Go watch this if you haven’t already!

2) I Care A Lot – You knew it was coming! I did a dialogue scene breakdown for I Care A Lot in one of the best written scenes of the year. This movie isn’t perfect. And those who criticize it for not having anyone to root for have a fair point. But I just loved the way this offbeat plot emerged. So cool to see J Blakeson back in the ‘hot director’ chair. I fully expect him to blow up from here.

1) Riders of Justice – If there’s a theme that connects these top three entries, “unexpected” would probably be it. No movie had me more flummoxed (in a good way) than this one. The movie was so good that super producer, Shawn Levy, optioned it for a remake. I don’t know how they’re going to adapt this quirky character piece slash action revenge tale for American audiences and not confuse the moviegoing universe but I’m there to find out!

And that’s my list! Are there any amaaaaaa-zing 2021 movies that I missed?

THOUGHTS ON THE 2021 BLACK LIST!

My initial thoughts on the list are, “You know, this isn’t half bad.” This year’s list, unlike recent years, seems to be celebrating the best ideas as opposed to following agendas. Of course we still have mainstays such as ‘the true story of this celebrity nobody actually cares about’ and a few concepts that would, shall we say, be applauded by the Twitter crowd. But, by and far, the list seems to be about the best ideas. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted from the Black List.

Another thing I noticed is that Franklin Leonard, as reclusive and curmudgeonly as he is, seems to *sort of* be listening to feedback. We’ve gone from 80 screenplays to only 60 this year. I still think topping out at 25 would make the list so much more exclusive and prestigious. But this is a good first step. When you have 80 scripts on the list, all you’re doing is providing the public with a receipt of every script that agents sent out that year.

To build a little suspense, I’m going to tackle these in REVERSE ORDER. Lowest votes first all the way up to the top voted script. I’m also going to be **HIGHLIGHTING** my favorite concepts, so you’ll know exactly what’s gotten me all hot and bothered. Let’s get started, shall we?

7 votes
Title: Ways to Hide In Winter
Writer: Jenny Halper
Logline: A woman in rural Pennsylvania falls in love with a stranger from Uzbekistan, then finds out he may be responsible for war crimes. Based on Sarah St. Vincent’s acclaimed debut novel.
Thoughts: Obviously, this one is based on a novel and therefore there’s probably a lot more going on here than what’s in the logline. It’s given me flashbacks to that Jason Reitman movie with Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, Labor Day. Without saying much more, that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

7 votes
Title: The Way You Remember Me
Writer: Geoffrey Roth
Logline: Following the death of her vivacious, entrepreneurial, thirtysomething son Ben, Laurie learns that he had frozen some of his sperm before his passing. As she embarks on an unconventional journey in search of someone who may bear Ben’s child, Laurie forges an unexpected friendship with a woman, who, in turn, starts to fall for the memory of him.
Thoughts: This sounds a little bit like if John Greene and Nicholas Sparks had a screenplay baby then had the Hallmark channel breastfeed him. Then again, this is a logline. There are ways to explore these stories in a sophisticated compelling manner and ways to explore them in a schmaltzy melodramatic manner. I hope this is the former!

7 votes
Title: The Unbound
Writer: Sam West
Logline: Disillusioned with life in the wake of a personal tragedy, Rachel goes on a mountain retreat with her friends in search of an escape, only to find themselves stumbling into the depths of horror and madness.
Thoughts: This is a classic logline mistake so I’m guessing some freshly hired assistant wrote it. You have kept the only thing that would make anybody want to read this script a secret (“only to find themselves stumbling into the depths of horror and madness”). We need details. What horror? What kind of madness? What are the specific details of these events? Without knowing, nobody will want to read this. Cause I read a dozen scripts a year about people mountain climbing. Tell me why yours is different. Another reason to use my logline service! (E-mail carsonreeves1@gmail.com for a logline consult. They’re just $25!)

7 votes
Title: Thicker Than Ice
Writer: Tara Tomicevic
Logline: Inspired by the true story of Hannah and Marissa Brandt, adoptive sisters and hockey players who put their relationship to the test as they vie for Olympic glory… on different teams: top-ranked Team USA and Korea’s first ever unified team.
Thoughts: First of all, kudos to the writer for finding a different kind of true story. This sounds different from everything else out there. But there’s a fatal flaw in the premise, which is that it contains two different movies. On the one hand, you have two sisters forced to play sports for two different teams on the Olympics. That’s a movie right there. But then you also have the first ever unified Korean female hockey team, which is clearly a movie unto itself. Too many ideas has killed more screenplays than I can count.

7 votes
Title: Sleep Solution
Writers: Ted Caplan, Jenni Hendricks
Logline: Two former thieves are having a hard enough time with their fussy newborn baby when a mishap draws them back into their old lives, forcing them to recover a priceless jade bangle, escape their boss’s murderous son and, toughest of all, get their baby to sleep through the night.
Thoughts: At this point we might as well add the “three crazy things” approach to the logline vernacular since it’s used so often. I’ve always had problems with this approach as it indicates that you don’t really have a good idea so you’re forced to throw three crazy things at us in the hopes that it will make up for that fact. The only time it works is when the three things are genuinely awesome. But, first of all, I don’t even know what a jade bangle is. And I doubt most people do. So, already, right there, you’ve kind of screwed yourself. Because the second people are confused in your logline, you’re done. Straight up, you’re done. If you can’t be clear in one sentence, why would someone think you could be clear with 100 pages. This logline is too messy to give me hope.

7 votes
Title: Max and Tony’s One Night Stand
Writer: Thomas Kivney
Logline: A disastrous Grindr hookup goes from bad to worse when a meteor unleashes a horde of aliens on New York and the two ill-matched men must depend on each other to make it through the night alive.
Thoughts: This is one of those ideas that could either be really stupid… or really awesome. I only say it could be stupid because I read a lot of scripts like this and the chaos has a tendency to get so ridiculous, you cease to be emotionally invested. It’s just a bunch of silly gags that run out of gas by the midpoint. If this script has three hilarious set pieces, though, that’s enough for a fun movie.

7 votes.
Title: Lift
Writer: Daniel Kunka
Logline: A female master thief and her ex-boyfriend who works for the FBI team up to steal $100M worth of gold bullion being transported on a 777 passenger flight from London to Zurich.
Thoughts: You know I love myself a plane concept! Throw a heist premise into the mix and you have yourself a movie. I’m a little concerned about whether there’s enough plot here to last an entire movie. I guess it depends on how big you want to go (do they send military planes up after them or is everything going to be relegated to the plane). It’s a fun premise but it feels like it’s missing one more piece.

7 votes
Title: Killers and Diplomats
Writers: John Tyler McClain, Michael Nourse
Logline: The true story of the murder of four American churchwomen in El Salvador in 1980 and the low-level American diplomat who teamed with his most dangerous informant to smoke out their killers. Based on Raymond Bonner’s work for The Atlantic.
Thoughts: While I would love to be positive here, when I heard, “The true story of the murder of four American…” my brain went into a mini-seizure. I’ve seen so many loglines start this way I can’t even count them. I’m looking for the unique element here that sets this apart from every other true story rescue mission but I’m not seeing it.

7 votes
Title: An Ideal Woman
Writer: Laura Kosann
Logline: Set in American suburbia during the Cuban Missile Crisis: A 1960s ex-actress and housewife finds her house-of-cards world begin to tumble as she continues to be pitted against two identities.
Thoughts: I’ll rule this one as ID2ILL, which stands for “Incomplete Due To Insufficient Logline Info.” The thing you don’t want to do with your logline is cause confusion or a lack of understanding. “Pitted against two identities.” What does that even mean? I guess it has something to do with her being an actress and she becomes one of her parts? Who knows? This logline needs to be way more specific to entice people into reading it.

7 votes
Title: The Family Plan
Writer: David Coggeshall
Logline: A former top assassin living incognito as a suburban dad must take his unsuspecting family on the run when his past catches up to him.
Thoughts: Okay, we’ve just located the single most generic logline of the year. I know I say this all the time but, still, people obviously don’t listen so I’ll say it again. What is the unique component about your story? Whatever that is, make sure it’s highlighted in the logline! I may have just dogged An Ideal Woman but at least that logline had “1960s,” “Cuban Missile Crisis,” “Ex-actress.” These are unique things that paint a picture of a specific story in the reader’s head. We don’t get even a hint of that here.

7 votes
Title: False Truth
Writers: Thomas Berry, Isaac Gabaeff, Nathan Gabaeff
Logline: The life of a cynical San Francisco criminal lawyer at the top of his career unravels when he agrees to represent a father accused of killing his infant son in an extraordinary case that challenges widely accepted medical beliefs, a biased justice system, and his own personal worldview. Based on true events.
Thoughts: This isn’t my thing but I understand why these scripts are written. Actors LOVE PLAYING these parts. They love playing lawyers who are going up against impossible odds with heavy emotional stakes involved. Grab a great actor for this part and you’re in the awards conversation. Done.

7 votes
Title: Dennis Rodman’s 48 Hours In Vegas (link)
Writer: Jordan VanDina
Logline: Before Game 7 of the NBA finals, Dennis Rodman tells Phil Jackson he needs 48 hours in Vegas. What follows is a surreal adventure with his skittish assistant GM that involves a bull rodeo, parachuting out of a Ferrari and building a friendship that neither one of them ever thought was possible but will end up solving both of their problems.
Thoughts: Oh boy. I’ve already reviewed this one and it’s not a bad script but when you’ve got that kind of title, your expectations are as high as a parachuting Ferrari. So when that parachute doesn’t open and you crash into the ground like Wil E. Coyote, you don’t exactly remember the experience fondly.

7 votes
Title: The Dark
Writer: Chad Handley
Logline: When stranded on the far end of Manhattan by a mysterious city-wide blackout, a group of inner-city middle schoolers must fight through seemingly supernatural forces to make their way back to their parents in the Bronx.
Thoughts: I’m a little frustrated by the term “seemingly supernatural forces.” I would rather the writer tell us what the forces are so we understand what kind of movie we’re reading. But this is the first script so far that feels like a movie. Clear shades of Attack The Block.

7 votes
Title: Carriage Hill
Writers: Emi Mochizuki, Carrie Wilson
Logline: A pregnant couple hoping to start their family in the suburbs find themselves embroiled in a decades long mystery which threatens to shatter their American dream.
Thoughts: ID2ILL – What’s the decades long mystery? TELL US! That’s what’s going to make us want to read the script! This sounds like it could be good but because I don’t have enough information, the script goes deeper into the pile.

7 votes
Title: Blackpill
Writer: Alexandra Serio
Logline: Awkward and lonely, Jared is only able to find a community online — until the day he realizes that his favorite Youtuber lives nearby. Desperate for a connection, he becomes determined to find a way into her life… whether she wants it or not.
Thoughts: Seems like we’re getting more and more of these “influencer stalker” concepts. And since I like stalker concepts, I’ll keep reading them! As you know, one of my favorite recent reads was Lurker, which covered similar subject matter.

7 votes
Title: Bella
Writer: Chris Grillot
Logline: A young college student is forced to confront her family’s dark past when a mysterious stalker appears, derailing her life and sending her spiraling into a web of anxiety and paranoia.
Thoughts: Stalker deja vu! Unfortunately, there aren’t enough unique details to get me excited about this script. There are plenty of examples of basic premises that turn out to be great scripts because the writer has an amazing voice or they just execute the sh#t out of the story. But if you’re one of these writers who has a great script with only a basic premise, you have to gussy up the logline just a little bit more so your script doesn’t sound generic.

7 votes
Title: APEX
Writer: Jeremy Robbins
Logline: When an adrenaline junkie sets out to conquer a menacing river, she discovers that nature isn’t the only thing out for blood.
Thougths: Time for another acronym! GELS. Generic Ending Logline Syndrome. What *is* out for blood!? Tell us! Or nobody’s going to want to read the script.

8 votes
Title: St. Mary’s Catholic School Presents The Vagina Monologues
Writers: Hannah Hafey, Kaitlin Smith
Logline: Frustrated by the conservative curriculum at her high school, a rebellious teen girl decides to stage the school’s first ever production of The Vagina Monologues. Which is going to be a challenge, as no one else at St. Mary’s can even bear to say the word ‘vagina’ out loud . . . Based on Flynn Meaney’s Bad Habits.
Thoughts: While this might not be aimed at my demo, I appreciate any well-constructed ironic premise as irony is the quickest way to create a “I have to read this” logline. And kudos to the writer for putting the entire premise right there in the title, making it easy for lazy potential readers to get hooked without even having to read a logline. Okay, things are starting to pick up here!

8 votes
Title: A Nice Indian Boy
Writers: Eric Randall
Logline: When Naveen brings his fiance Jay home to meet his family, his traditional Indian parents must contend with accepting his white partner and helping them plan the most fabulous same sex Indian wedding the Bay Area has ever seen.
Thoughts: As one of my best friends is Indian and I saw all the insanity he had to go through with his family when he married a white woman (his parents were disowned by some of their cousins), I can only imagine the endless supply of conflict a premise like this offers. You have to get the execution right. But the writer has a great entry point into a movie.

8 votes
Title: A Hufflepuff Love Story
Writer: Sophia Lopez
Logline: Unpopular Hogwarts student Finn blames everything bad in his life on being sorted into Hufflepuff rather than Gryffindor with Harry Potter and the cool kids. So when he discovers a chance to go back in time and fix that, he takes it — only to discover things aren’t quite as simple as he’d imagined.
Thoughts: The weird Harry Potter ideas continue to make the Black List!. This is basically fan fiction which means it’s a script that can never be made. However, you can get noticed with fan fiction and, obviously, by making the Black List, this writer has achieved that. And since it’s all about getting noticed, I applaud the writer! Whatever it takes.

8 votes
Title: Hello Universe
Writer: Michael Golamco
Logline: When a bully’s antics land a timid boy in the bottom of a well, his self-proclaimed psychic friend and unknowing crush team up to find him. Based on the 2017 book by Erin Entrada Kelly.
Thoughts: There are two kinds of children’s movie ideas. The kind that appeal to kids and the kind that appeal to both kids and adults. This seems more like the former which is why I’m not over the moon about it. But it does feel like one of those sweet harmless movies that, if you caught on a plane, you might break into tears during the climax (everybody cries when watching movies on the plane. Anyone who tells you differently is a liar!).

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8 votes
Title: Go Dark
Writers: Josh Marentette, Spencer Marentette
Logline: A team of black-ops soldiers use an experimental technology to travel into the afterlife and rescue their dead teammate.
Thoughts: We’ve got our first super high-concept entry into the 2021 Black List. WOOOOO-HOOOOO! Bring back the 90s spec boom! Bring back the 90s spec boom! Come on, I can’t hear you. Bring back the 90s spec boom! This feels like a script that wouldn’t have made the list without the success of The Tomorrow War so thank you Chris Pratt.
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8 votes
Title: From Little Acorns Grow
Writer: Laura Kosann
Logline: After a woman becomes one of the first female presidents of a 1950s publishing house in New York, she draws a former college classmate into her orbit, who soon finds her literary empire is not what it appears to be.
Thoughts: Everything was great up until, “is not what it appears to be.” Literally the entire logline falls apart in that moment. What isn’t what it appears to be? Tell us and we’ll probably want to read your script. For those of you who counter this logic with, “Well we want to retain the secrets of our story.” It doesn’t matter if nobody wants to read the script in the first place.

8 votes
Title: Four Assassins (And A Funeral)
Writer: Ryan Hooper
Logline: The adoptive daughter of a legendary assassin returns home for his funeral… and finds herself in the crosshairs of her four highly trained, highly dangerous siblings.
Thoughts: Okay, first of all? Best title so far. This one has potential. It’s very high concept yet doesn’t require a big budget. I’m always a little squirrely about comedy concepts that have family members trying to kill each other because you know that – since it’s a comedy – nobody’s actually going to kill their sibling. But the script’s got a good starting point.

8 votes
Title: The First Outside
Writer: Yumiko Fujiwara
Logline: Peter, a seventeen-year-old painter, lives with his controlling mother in a lonely house in the wilderness. When he meets a mysterious stranger, he begins to question the reality he was raised to believe, gathers the courage to leave his mother, and unveils the sinister truth behind his upbringing.
Thoughts: I’ve read so many versions of this story before. And, unfortunately, the logline doesn’t tell me anything that would indicate this is going to be different from those scripts. One thing the writer could’ve keyed in on was the mysterious stranger. Tell us more about them. What makes them unique. That might’ve piqued my interest. But the current logline feels too general to get me excited.

8 votes
Title: The Devil Herself
Writer: Colin Bannon
Logline: When an elite assassin is sent to the haunted Harz Mountains in Germany on an extraction job she intends to be her last, she quickly learns that the local legends about witchcraft are true and must face a sinister supernatural threat.
Thoughts: Okay now this is a cool idea. We’re mixing genres (assassins, the supernatural) which is always a great way to find some high concepts hiding in the shadows. And the idea of an assassin battling witchcraft gives me the tingles. This one could be fun.

8 votes
Title: Barron’s Cove
Writer: Evan Ari Kelman
Logline: When his young son is viciously murdered by a classmate, a grieving father with a history of violence kidnaps the child responsible, igniting a frenzied manhunt fueled by a powerful politician — the father of the kidnapped boy.
Thoughts: This is how you perform a final logline PUNCH, which is a great way to end your logline in style. You build up to it, insert the hyphen, then finish with the hammer punchline. That I liked. What I’m not sure about is young children viciously murdering other children. Does that even happen? And now you’ve got a dad kidnapping a young child who he’s possibly going to harm? I don’t know. Sounds like a dental floss thin rope you’re going to have to walk.

8 votes
Title: Ballast
Writer: Justin Piasecki
Logline: A naval engineer and her crew find themselves trapped in a deadly game on a shipping vessel in the middle of the Atlantic when they learn a series of car bombs are hidden amongst the thousands of vehicles on board.
Thoughts: MAJOR points for coming up with an original high-concept premise. I’ve never encountered anything like this setup before. My worry would be script repetition. After they find and defuse several bombs, what then? Do we just keep looking for more? If the script has a plan to push the narrative beyond that, this could be really fun.

9 votes
Title: It Was You
Writer: William Yu
Logline: With the future of Manhattan’s Chinatown at stake, a stubborn store clerk battles against an innovative CEO’s expansion plan, while both are unaware they’ve been falling in love with each other on a new, anonymous dating app.
Thoughts: I saw some people praising this one as a modern take on You’ve Got Mail (and The Shop Around The Corner). My only concern is that it sort of feels like one of those situations you might find in an episode of a teen TV show. So I’m wondering if it’s big enough. I guess the counter argument to that is the CEO angle. That’s what makes the concept big enough for a movie. I don’t know. I’m lukewarm on this one. I’ll put it in the “has the potential to surprise me” pile.

9 votes
Title: IDOL
Writer: Tricia Lee
Logline: The true story of American Idol viral sensation, William Hung.
Thoughts: When I originally wrote up this list, I missed this entry. That may have been the universe speaking to both me and anyone who wants to make this film. Oh COME ON. I kid. I kid. Who doesn’t love William Hung. SHE BANGS, SHE BANGS! I wonder if this will be a satirical take or a serious take. Oh, who am I kidding. I don’t wonder at all.

9 votes
Title: Hard to Get
Writer: Dan Schoffer
Logline: After Amanda is seemingly ghosted by the man of her dreams, she’s delighted to discover he’s actually been kidnapped — and takes it upon herself to be his rescuer, going on an adventure of epic proportions along the way.
Thoughts: I’m digging this one. I smile every time I read “she’s delighted to discover he’s actually been kidnapped.” Again, my friends – IRONY! Irony is so powerful in loglines. You’re not supposed to be happy that your boyfriend was kidnapped which is why this works. I also like the genre-switch of the female knight going to save her prince-cess.

9 votes
Title: Fiendish
Writer: Edgar Castillo
Logline: While meeting her boyfriend’s dysfunctional family at their ancestral manor, a young woman finds herself entangled in a bizarre and terrifying mystery when the family’s patriarch claims to have been cursed by a demon.
Thoughts: Hmm, this reads like an ‘almost’ idea. There’s clearly *something* here – the starting point for a movie. And the demon is clearly a callback to the ancestral manor, so there is connection between the first and second halves of the logline (something a lot of writers don’t do). But the logline seems to be missing that “and then what” story beat that really gets us excited to read the script.

9 votes
Title: Chicago For One
Writer: Madeleine Paul
Logline: Based on Robbie Chernow’s hilarious viral solo adventure, a newly heart-broken groomsman takes Chicago by storm celebrating a solo Bachelor Party Weekend after the rest of the party — including the groom — get stuck over 700 miles away.
Thoughts: A fun idea. Again, we’ve got a little bit of irony there. Parties are supposed to contain multiple people by definition. So a single person party is ironic. Plus it’s a party with stakes attached to it since it’s a once-in-lifetime ordeal. I think I would’ve liked this better, though, if it was about a guy who was about to get married, his fiancé broke up with him, but he still had this giant bachelor party paid for and decided to do it anyway, even though all the other guys dropped out.

9 votes
Title: Challengers
Writer: Justin Kuritzkes
Logline: Framed around a single tennis match at a low-level pro tournament, three players who knew each other when they were teenagers — a world-famous grand slam winner, his ambitious wife/coach, and their old friend who’s now a burnout ranked 201 in the world — reignite old rivalries on and off the court.
Thoughts: Now you would THINK that this would be my number one most anticipated screenplay, seeing as I’m a big tennis nut. But here’s the thing. I don’t think it’s possible to write a good tennis movie. I’ve tried it several times myself. I’ve worked with several other writers writing them. There’s something about tennis that doesn’t translate well to film. So I’ll read this. But it kind of sounds like your basic talking heads drama. I’m not seeing that “ace” angle here. Also, why is a grand slam winner at a challenger tournament? I mean, duh, that’s the first thing all of you were thinking, right?

10 votes
Title: Skeleton Tree
Writer: Paul Barry
Logline: When an accident sinks their boat, two teenaged boys must learn how to survive the wilds of the remote Alaskan coastline, endure one another, and to come to terms with a long-held life-altering secret.
Thoughts: Lord of the Flies, but with two flies. Can it work? Hey, survival can work as the sole motivator for a narrative because the stakes are literally life and death. And the less apt the characters are at surviving, the more interesting the story tends to be. Since our characters here are young, I’m assuming they’re not well-equipped for survival. This could be good!

10 votes
Title: Shania!
Writer: Jessica Welsh
Logline: Eilleen Edwards rises from an impoverished upbringing in rural Canada to transform into 90’s global country-pop superstar Shania Twain, only to face her greatest challenge yet: putting her life and career back together after losing her voice.
Thoughts: I mean, this logline seems tailor designed to make me dislike it. Not only do you have a music biopic. You’ve got an artist whose music I don’t care for. I don’t know. It seems like we can do better. How about concentrating on a single concert so we at least have some urgency to the story. Otherwise, loglines like this give me PTSD.

10 votes
Title: Sandpiper
Writer: Lindsay Michel
Logline: Still reeling in the wake of her husband’s death, master thief Viola Crier signs on to a risky, last-minute job set to take place inside a man-made time loop, but as the number of loops increases, the job begins to spiral out of control.
Thoughts: I’m pretty sure I highlighted this spec in a newsletter. I’m digging the new angle on the loop movie. And it seems the story gets even more weird as the loop rules start to change once inside the loop. I’ll definitely read this one.

10 votes
Title: Operation Milk & Cookies
Writer: M. Miller Davis
Logline: After their house is threatened with repossession, a mismatched group of foster kids set out on an adventure to summon Santa Claus to save their home and end up on the run from a crew of angry bank robbers.
Thoughts: Oh my god. What a great holiday film title. The concept itself feels a little light under the gortex jacket. But this one will definitely make the pre-Christmas read list here at Scriptshadow.

10 votes
Title: Mimi
Writer: Scarlett Bermingham
Logline: A successful illustrator finds herself friendless after her best friend gets engaged, forcing her to embark on an epic quest to “date” for new girlfriends — as an adult.
Thoughts: This, like It Was You, is a fun idea. But it’s also one of those ideas that feels like a TV episode. I think this was actually a Friends episode, wasn’t it? Still, if the writer is funny, we could have a funny script on our hands.

10 votes
Title: Follow
Writer: Michael Kujak
Logline: When a social media influencer meets a fan at a meet-and-greet, she’s so taken with her cleverness and vulnerability that she invites the fan to intern with her for the summer. At first, they’re an unstoppable team, but soon, the influencer is forced to wonder who she has let into her life.
Thoughts: Okay, that’s it. The social media stalker movie is now officially a new genre. This is why I hate that the Black List doesn’t include genres because I don’t know if this a light comedy, a dark comedy, or the second coming of The Cable Guy. Where it falls on that list has a major influence over how much I want to read it.

10 votes
Title: Cruel Summer
Writers: Leigh Cesiro, Erica Matlin
Logline: During the summer of 1998, five camp counselors accidentally kill a stranger in the woods.
Thoughts: Very common setup. Not seeing anything original here. It almost seems like the manager wants to hide the concept from the prying eyes of Black List readers. Which is fine by me. But it makes me not very excited to read your script.

10 votes
Title: Abbi and the Eighth Wonder
Writer: Matt Roller
Logline: When a misogynist explorer meets his sudden (and violent) end, his long-overlooked understudy seizes the moment and embarks on an adventure that will earn her a place in the annals of history.
Thoughts: This sounds fun. Sort of like a comedic version of Raiders. I always say that the easiest way to find an idea is to take a popular movie and come up with the comedy version of it. The understudy angle implies all sorts of struggle and shenanigans, which are both great for comedy. Sounds pretty good!

11 votes
Title: Yasuke
Writer: Stuart C. Paul
Logline: The true story of the first and only African Samurai in feudal Japan who rose from being a slave for the Jesuits to fighting as a Samurai in the unification of Japan.
Thoughts: You know me. I’m not a true story guy. But I like this idea a lot. Not only do you have the fish out of water element, which is one of the most bankable setups in screenwriting, but I like that we’re telling a unique story about a black slave. So many of these concepts I’m seeing with slavery are on the nose. This is whatever the opposite of on the nose is. And that’s what makes it sound so cool.

11 votes
Title: Wheels Come Off
Writer: Kryzz Gautier
Logline: In the year 2065, a fiery teenager with a wild imagination, her paraplegic mom, and their clueless robot struggle to navigate the post-apocalypse; but when the mother’s wheelchair breaks, the trio must venture out into the dangerous “outside” for a chance to survive.
Thoughts: Let me say this. If you would’ve sent me the logline for Street Rat Allie Punches Her Ticket without context, I would not want to read it. But that screenplay turned out to be great. This seems to exist in that same universe, so I’m curious about it. But, if I’m being honest, the logline reads a little messy.

11 votes
Title: Jellyfish Days
Writers: Matthew Kic, Mike Sorce
Logline: A young woman and her devoted boyfriend’s lives are dramatically altered by a medical procedure that could potentially quadruple their lifespans.
Thoughts: This is a classic “And” logline. Annnnndddd?????? It could quadruple their lives AND then what? Where’s the conflict. Without conflict, it’s an idea. It’s not yet a movie. Maybe the movie is hidden in a longer logline but then I would’ve liked to see that logline. It’s not a bad idea. It’s just incomplete.

11 votes
Title: Indigo
Writer: Ola Shokunbi
Logline: An art thief who takes priceless objects from museums and private collections and redistributes them to their original countries of ownership is tracked by a dogged FBI Agent across the globe.
Thoughts: This seems a little too “do-gooder” to me. It’s like, ohhhh, you’re such a good person for returning these items to their rightful countries! How good of you! That’s so good! You must feel really good about yourself. Give me a break. Someone else read this and let me know if the FBI agent wins. Cause if they do, I’ll give it a read.

11 votes
Title: Candlewood
Writers: Jason Benjamin, Jessica Granger
Logline: In 1992 a seaplane crash in a lakefront community sparks a relationship between three young sisters and the mysterious, injured female pilot.
Thoughts: All right. A plane crash slant on Little Women. I’m with Larry David on this one. No more Little Women stories for me. But seriously, there’s a certain lack of dramatic excitement involved in stories where the plot seems to be about people becoming friends. It’s lightweight. There’s not enough conflict. I’m not saying it never works. There are, of course, many great movies about friendship. But it’s hard to get excited about reading screenplays with that setup is all I’m saying.

11 votes
Title: Believe Me
Writers: Hannah Mescon, Dreux Moreland
Logline: An absurdist biopic chronicling the many rises and falls of Donald Trump, culminating with that fateful night at the 2011 Correspondent’s Dinner.
Thoughts: What’s that old adage? Know your audience? Mescon and Moreland certainly know their audience by throwing a Donald Trump script into the Hollywood butter churner. And, to their credit, they’re giving us an unexpected angle. I’m not aware of what happened at the 2011 Correspondent’s Dinner. But I’m, like a lot of people, burnt out on political stuff so I probably won’t check this out.

12 votes
Title: Symphony of Survival
Writer: Daniel Persitz
Logline: The incredible true story of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich writing an epic symphony during the deadly World War II siege of Leningrad — a work of art so powerful it would save him and his family, all while helping to unite his people with the Allies.
Thoughts: Hmmmm… Part of me commends the writer for coming up with a new angle on World War 2 subject matter. The other part wonders if we’re stretching at this point. What’s next? The story of the German chef who created the strudel that ignited Germany’s appetite for world dominance? Where do we draw the line for World War 2 ideas???

12 votes
Title: MICHAEL BAY: THE EXPLOSIVE BIOPIC
Writer: Sean Tidwell
Logline: Packed with enough C4 to split an asteroid in two, this tell-all Michael Bay origin story reveals the explosions that defined him, the fire that ignited his little heart, and the fate that sealed his Hollywood destiny.
Thoughts: Very fun idea. Maybe a few years late but a satirical take on the master of the mindless blockbuster framed within one of these ubiquitous cradle-to-grave biopic formats? Lots of possibility for hilarity here. There’s only one thing wrong with this concept. And that’s that it’s one slot below the funniest concept on the list. Which is………

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12 votes
Title: The Masked Singer
Writers: Mike Jones, Nicholas Sherman
Logline: Mickey Rourke loses his mind after he’s forced to take a gig on television’s highest rated show: The Masked Singer.
Thoughts: Literally couldn’t stop laughing when I read this. First of all, Mickey Rourke thought he was above being on the Iron Man 2 set. He couldn’t stop complaining in one of the most professional and high-level productions in the business – a giant Marvel film. Can you imagine how angry he would be if he had to do a Masked Singer episode, the current bottom of the barrel for celebrities to get screen time. I honestly couldn’t imagine a single minute going by in this movie that wasn’t funny. It’s a genius concept.
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12 votes
Title: Lady Krylon
Writer: Brandon Constantine
Logline: Two rival graffiti artists engage in a series of street battles, culminating in an otherworldy duel after the art starts bleeding into the real world.
Thoughts: “…after the art starts bleeding into the real world.” What. Does. That. Mean??????? Two rival graffiti artists engage in a series of street battles, culminating in an otherworldy duel where the characters they’ve painted come alive to fight by their side. I don’t know if that’s what happens but that’s how you want to write it. You want to actually TELL. US. WHAT. HAPPENS.

13 votes
Title: Rabbit Season
Writer: Shanrah Wakefield
Logline: Supernatural horror about a woman stalked through a dark city park by the most monstrous manifestation of manhood during her walk home from her high school reunion.
Thoughts: Seems like a supernatural version of Get Home Safe, which isn’t a bad idea. It’s going to be hard to top that script though with the voice being so strong. Also, not sure how you extend a chase through a park for 90 pages. I can walk through most parks in five minutes.

13 votes
Title: Loud
Writer: Whit Brayton
Logline: A famed experimental musician finds himself embroiled in the race to solve Earth’s primary existential threat: A deafening sound that never stops, forcing all of humanity to survive in silence.
Thoughts: This is one of the most interesting entries on the list but not for the usual reasons. If you have this annoying sound as the main source of conflict, then won’t you annoy audiences by playing it? Or will it just be implied and we’ll sit in silence the whole movie? I do like the unique antagonist though. I’ve never seen that before. Curious about this one.

13 votes
Title: Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel
Writer: Michael Shanks
Logline: A man wakes up trapped in a mysterious hotel room. All alone in a mind-bending prison, his only chance for escape is teamwork: with himself.
Thoughts: First of all, I love this title. I don’t know why but something about it tickles my curiosity. As for the concept, these super-cheap contained trippy ideas that focus on multipel versions of the same character – I see them a lot. And they’re REALLLLY HARD to extend out to a full 90 minutes. So I’m skeptical but, hey, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

13 votes
Title: Hot Girl Summer
Writer: Michelle Askew
Logline: After witnessing a drug deal gone wrong, thirteen-year-old (and exceptionally awkward) Beatrice accidentally finds herself in the middle of an underground drug ring…and on the perfect route to having a proper hot girl summer.
Thoughts: I don’t think you should ever include parenthesis in loglines. They always gum up the logline and loglines are meant to be clean and easy to read. The one exception, though, is comedy loglines. You can have more fun with those. And the parentheses, ironically, are actually what save this logline. Cause without knowing that a girl who was trying to be hot was “exceptionally awkward,” I wouldn’t have understood the point.

13 votes
Title: The College Dropout
Thomas Aguilar, Michael Ballin
Logline: A young Kanye West’s intimate journey to create his seminal first album that reinvented hip hop music.
Thoughts: You knew it was coming, right? We all knew it was coming. In an industry dead set on excavating every musical biopic opportunity it can find, Kanye was going to be in the mix at some point. To be fair, Kanye is one of the more interesting individuals out there. He doesn’t follow the flock. He’s bi-polar. He’s had tragedy that’s defined him. There’s a lot to dig into there. But, in the end, it’s still a music biopic. You can’t escape that prison.

13 votes
Title: Air Jordan
Writer: Alex Convery
Logline: The wild true story of how an upstart shoe company named Nike landed the most influential endorsement in sports history: Michael Jordan.
Thoughts: Just when I thought the list couldn’t get more unoriginal… they did it. Does this story really need to be told?? You’re talking to someone who loves Michael Jordan! I used to go watch him play in the old Chicago Stadium. I should be the prime audience here and I even think this is the most boring angle into this man. We get it. Nike was lucky to get Jordan and the two sides flourished for 30 years together. There, I just told you the entire story.

14 votes
Title: *Weird
Writer: Augustus Schiff
Logline: An autistic kid tries to do normal college things — making friends, figuring out if girls like him, getting over his mom’s death — while seeing life in his own “musical” way.
Thoughts: You never know if these tug-at-the-heartstrings scripts are going to be cheesy and maudlin or complex interesting character studies. So I’ll reserve judgement here. But based on the logline alone, I’m getting a slight “try hard” vibe.

15 votes
Title: Whittier
Writers: Filipe Coutinho, Ben Mehlman
Logline: While looking into a client’s murder, a Los Angeles social worker stumbles on a political conspiracy in the wake of the 1987 Whittier earthquake.
Thoughts: I like murder mysteries that collide with unexpected scenarios. So I like that there’s an earthquake angle to this investigation. Seems like Coutinho and Mehlman are Chinatown fans. If you’re going to be inspired, why not be inspired by the best?

15 votes
Title: Homecoming
Writers: Murder Ink (Brandon Broussard, Hudson Obayuwana, Jana Savage)
Logline: Ten years after graduation, one of New York’s most eligible bachelors and his eccentric wanderlust wingman try to pull their recently divorced friend out of his rut by taking him back to Howard University’s legendary Homecoming for the best weekend of their lives.
Thoughts: I don’t have much reaction to this logline since I don’t know what’s legendary about Howard’s homecoming. Seems very specific. But I love that these three writers have marketed themselves with this very memorable name. It can be hard to remember writers so anything that set you apart is helpful. If there are any 2-team or 3-team writers out there, I’d consider stealing this approach. Just make sure your name is as cool as “Murder Ink!”

15 votes
Title: Grizz
Writer: Connor Barry
Logline: A car accident strands a young paramedic in the rugged Pacific Northwest where she is hunted by a ravenous grizzly bear.
Thoughts: We’ve had a couple of bear-hunts-person scripts reviewed here on the site. One of them was pretty good. As far as this one that’s made the Black List, it seems too standard. You got to gussy it up a little, maybe tell us more about the main character. Anything to add more specificity. The less specificity you add, the more generic your premise will sound. Never forget that!

16 votes
Title: Mr. Benihana
Writer: Chris Wu
Logline: When a short Japanese kid from post-war Tokyo decides to make it big in the US of A, he discovers a winning recipe of exploiting his heritage with good old-fashioned American entertainment, to the great shame of his traditionalist father. This is the larger-than-life immigrant story of the OG daredevil playboy tycoon: the one-and-only Rocky Aoki.
Thoughts: I don’t know who this guy is and I’m biopic’d out. So I can’t muster a shred of excitement for this one.

17 votes
Title: In The End
Writer: Brian T. Arnold
Logline: In the near future, terminal patients are given the opportunity to go out with a bang with personalized VR “perfect endings.” But when the best Transition Specialist gets far too close to a patient, he finds himself questioning everything in his life.
Thoughts: Noooooooooo! You had such a good logline until the last eight words. “He finds himself questioning everything in his life” is literally the equivalent of writing, “I give up on this logline.” I’m going to promote my logline service a SECOND TIME in this article because, clearly, half of Hollywood needs it. $25. E-mail carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line, “Logline.” I will help you!!!!

18 votes
Title: Mercury
Writer: Stefan Jaworski
Logline: When a first date takes a dangerous turn, down-on-his-luck Michael risks everything to save his newfound love from her past. Little does he know, the night — and his date — are not what they seem. Michael soon finds himself on a high-octane cat-and-mouse race across the city to save himself and uncover the truth, armed with nothing but his wit, his driving skills, and a 1969 Ford Mercury.
Thoughts: Can you market an entire concept around a car? Let’s see. “Christine” did it. “Gran Torino” did it. So yeah, I guess you can. But this logline is a mess. Neither people NOR nights are what they seem? So this is supernatural?? But it’s also a first date movie. And then also a cat-and-mouse movie? If the writer puts all these pieces together in a cohesive way, I’ll be happy. But usually when I see loglines this messy, I see scripts this messy.

19 votes
Title: Wait List
Writer: Carly J. Hallman
Logline: A troubled millennial from small-town Texas will do anything to get into her top-choice law school, including murder.
Thoughts: The logline is a little thin but the premise is strong enough that I can see a movie here. Remember what I always say – if you’ve got a dead body, you’ve got a movie.

19 votes
Title: Ultra
Writer: Colin Bannon
Logline: When an ultramarathoner learns he is one of ten contestants chosen to take part in a secret race known as “the hardest race on earth,” he is forced to confront his past when he realizes there are deadly consequences for breaking the rules.
Thoughts: Is this the script sale I covered recently in the newsletter? Or is it a competing idea? Either way, Colin Bannon seems to be one of the only people on this list who understands strong high concept ideas. And he gets extra points for not writing a script about the Michael Jordan flu game.

21 votes
Title: The Villain
Writer: Andrew Ferguson
Logline: The completely outrageous and completely true story of “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli — from his meteoric rise as wunderkind hedge fund manager and pharmaceutical executive to his devastating fall involving crime, corruption and the Wu-Tang Clan — which exposed the rotten core of the American healthcare system.
Thoughts: As we’ve established too many times to count, I’m not a fan of the biopic. However, if you’re going to do one, pick an interesting person. Martin Shkreli is like a real-life movie villain. His evilness is almost too good to be true. If you were to force me to read a biopic from this list, The Villain would be my first choice, hands down.

23 votes
Title: Killer Instinct
Writer: Lillian Yu
Logline: After a Hollywood assistant is publicly fired for admitting while on a conference call that he’d love to kill his boss, he finds his boss dead in the office the next morning and goes on the lam to figure out the real culprit, all while being hunted by his boss’s assassin.
Thoughts: This sounds fun! I didn’t love Yu’s previous Black List entry but this one feels more grounded, like something she could wrangle in. With Cicada, I felt like she didn’t know that world as well as the writers who dominated that space.

25 votes
Title: Divorce Party
Writer: Rebecca Webb
Logline: Patricia Ford feels pretty good about trading her South Boston roots for a “perfect” life on New York’s Upper East Side, until everything falls to shit and her raucous girlfriends throw her a Divorce Party at the home she’s about to lose. As the night goes from wild to totally insane, Patricia takes back control of her life.
Thoughts: Sounds very ‘girl power.’ But I’m more interested in ‘concept power,’ which this doesn’t seem to have a lot of. I do like the irony inherent in the title. A divorce is a sad/bad/depressing thing. Therefore, we’re used to seeing it next to sad/bad/depressing words. Not fun words like “party.” Which is why irony is so powerful. The reader thinks, “Wait? Party? Why are they partying for a divorce?? Let me check this out.”

30 votes
Title: See How They Run
Writer: Lily Hollander
Logline: A blind mother moves into a remote farmhouse with her young daughter, but the mystery of the home’s previous inhabitants intrudes upon her attempts to repair their relationship.
Thoughts: This logline is pretty bereft of details. Which is why the writer’s lucky it finished so high on the list. Because even though the logline itself doesn’t get me excited, I’m guessing the execution has to be pretty good to get 30 votes.

************CARSON PICK************
************CARSON PICK************
32 votes
Title: Cauliflower
Writer: Daniel Jackson
Logline: Under the cruel guidance of a mysterious coach, an ambitious high school wrestler struggles to become a state champion while battling a bizarre infection in his ear that both makes him dominant in his sport and threatens his sanity.
Thoughts: I’m happy with this finishing number one on the list because it’s got a bunch of weird things going on that make me curious. The mysterious coach. The ear infection. The implication that the ear infection gives him some sort of advantage. Him losing his sanity. That’s how I like my Black List concepts to be baked up. In weird sauce. Now I just hope that the execution answers all these questions!
************CARSON PICK************
************CARSON PICK************

One final thought. The other day we talked about hustle being one of the primary ingredients for success. Well, here’s your chance to practice it. Every entry on the Black List comes with the corresponding manager and agent representing that writer. If any of these ideas sound like the kind of scripts you write, query that agent or manager with your logline. See if they’ll read it. Some, like the top guys at Verve, will be too busy. But you might be surprised at how many people respond to you. To get their contact info, just sign up for IMDB Pro and shoot them an e-mail. Good luck!

If you’re anything like me, you’ve wondered if there’s a secret equation to breaking into Hollywood as a screenwriter. The feeling by most is that there isn’t. In fact, many people think Hollywood is a lottery. That it’s 5% work and 95% luck. There’s nothing that infuriates me more than this take. Sure, there are some people who get lucky. And yes, luck plays a small part in any endeavor. But, by and large, most writers who break into Hollywood earn their spot.

But how did they do it? Well, today I’m going to introduce an equation that, if you follow it, you too, will find yourself writing six-figure assignments. It isn’t easy. I would go so far as to say it’s quite difficult. But at least you’ve got a blueprint you can follow as opposed to all this directionless ‘blowing in the wind’ you’re doing right now. Without further ado, let’s get to the equation! It is…

Time Writing + Learning IQ + Talent + Hustle + Persistence = Success

For each of these variables, you will assign a number from 1-10. 1 being you’re not good at it at all. 10 being you’re great at it. The best possible score would be 50. The good news is, I’ve found that most writers only need to score in the top 20% (between 40-50) to make it. And that some writers, believe it or not, can become professionals scoring as low as 35. Still, I would aim for that 40 number. If you can get above that, you’ll become a professional screenwriter.

Now, let’s go over what each of these variables mean…

Time Writing – The fastest way to get better at screenwriting is to do a lot of screenwriting. But what’s a lot of screenwriting? If you’re serious about being a professional screenwriter, you should write at least two hours a day. If you’re writing two hours a day, I’d give you a 6 out of 10 on the “Time Writing” scale. Every extra hour per day adds 1 additional point to your score. Three hours a day equals 7 out of 10. Four hours a day equals 8 out of 10. Also, every screenwriter should aim to write 2 scripts a year. If you can carve out more time, go for three. If you have endless amounts of time, shoot for four. The more you write, the more mistakes you make and learn from, the more feedback you get – all of these things are going to accelerate your learning curve.

Learning IQ – This isn’t one that’s talked about enough but it’s a big one because if there’s one thing I see a lot of with screenwriters it’s a lack of improvement. They tend to make the same script mistakes over and over again. Their concepts don’t improve. Their plotting, dialogue, and characters don’t improve. This tends to happen due to one of three things. One, the writer is too lazy to learn from their mistakes. They write aimlessly and never dissect their screenplays to see where they can get better. Two, they’re stubborn. They’re the kind of writer who assumes their way is right and they’re never open to new ideas or the possibility that what they’re doing is wrong. Or three, they’re convinced that they know better than the professionals. The Hollywood system churns out a bunch of terrible films so obviously it needs to be changed and they’re the ones who know how to change it. These writers write weird genre-bending material that is so set on disrupting the system, they forget to write clear entertaining stories. The good news is, if you come to this site and you’re taking all of my analysis to heart – even the stuff you don’t agree with – you’re learning a lot. This should be the easiest variable to score a 9 or a 10 in. Treat this craft as a school and you’re the student. There’s always something new to learn, always ways to get better. You should always be trying new things in your scripts.

Talent – Ahh, the most hotly debated of the variables. A lot of people believe that if you have talent, you’ll make it. And if you don’t, you won’t. Nothing could be further from the truth. Talent helps. But it’s just one variable amongst five. It is, however, the variable you have the least control over. You can’t “learn” talent. Talent tends to go to the writers who have the most unique voice. It goes to the writers who are the best at dialogue (since dialogue is so talent-dependent). When it comes to rating yourself in this category, understand that, due to human psychology, your assessment of your talent is probably higher than the reality of it. In fact, I would say that whatever you think your talent level is, deduct two points from it to get the real score. The only people who shouldn’t deduct points are those who have been told, constantly, throughout their lives, by people who aren’t their family, that they are talented writers. If that’s something you’ve heard from a dozen different people in your life, you’re probably near a 9 or a 10 in the talent category.

Hustle – If you scored low in the talent category, you have to score high in the hustle category. You can’t be bad at both. Hustlers are those people who enter all the contests, who cold query all the managers and producers and agents, who join writing groups, who are masters at keeping up their writing network. They’re people who, when they finish a script, they put together an entire plan of who they’re going to target and make an aggressive effort to execute that plan. Hustlers are salesman. They understand that the social aspect of this business is a necessary component to achieving success.

Persistence – Persistence is the art of never giving up. You probably need this variable more than any of the other ones. Cause you can spend a lot of time writing, you can be a fast learner, you can be talented, and you can hustle. But if you quit before all of those variables have time to blossom, it doesn’t matter. The unofficial timeline for becoming a professional writer is five years. But, the reality for most of us is it’s closer to ten. So if you’re not going to persist in this endeavor, there’s no point in trying it. Most writers don’t even start understand storytelling until their fifth script. Figuring out this number is easy. You get a point for every year you’re willing to put in to make it. Therefore, if you’re willing to give it five years, you get a 5 out of 10. Seven years, 7 out of 10.

Once you have all your numbers, add’em up. Hopefully, you’re somewhere near 40. If you’re not, look for places where you can improve. For example, if you don’t have time to write three hours a day during the week, maybe you can add some hours on the weekend. If you suck at hustling, block out a month a year where that’s all you focus on, is querying and expanding your network. Every person you send your script to, regardless of whether they’re in the industry or not, is one more person who could potentially help you. There are even ways to improve your talent level. For example, if you have a weak writing voice, write a practice script where you abandon all technical pretense and only follow that wild untethered voice in your head. You’ll likely have something messy and unusable at the end, but you’ll have improved your ability to tap into your subconscious, which should make your writing livelier.

I’m going to leave you with one final piece of advice. You will never rise above your opinion of yourself. There’s no guarantee that you’ll make it even if you believe you will. You might or you might not. But I can guarantee this. You will never make it if you don’t believe you will. So of those two options, it’s imperative that you believe. And if you don’t, figure out what’s going on internally so that you can change that negative belief into a positive one. Because you will only keep after it if you believe that doing so will result in achieving your objective.

Have a happy weekend everybody!

Genre: Spy/Action/Thriller
Premise: Based on a true story, when an American spy in the Middle East is outed by a Washington Post article, he becomes a target of the Iran military.
About: The next project for director Ric Roman Waugh and his good buddy, Gerard Butler. The script is written by former intelligence officer Mitchell LaFortune. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because LaFortune wrote another Middle East script called War Face about a female U.S. Army Special Agent who’s sent to an all-male Afghanistan outpost to investigate accusations of war crimes. Waugh and Butler worked together before on Greenland and Angel Has Fallen.
Writer: Mitchell LaFortune
Details: 111 pages

As we all know, this project stole both Ric Roman Waugh and Gerard Butler away from Kinetic. So I’m not bitter. Like, not bitter at all. I fully support this movie, despite the fact that both of them could’ve spearheaded the greatest semi truck movie ever made, a blue collar John Wick that will go on to become a billion dollar franchise.

For those of you curious, Kinetic is still moving forward. It’s just happening slowly and with a lot of boring developments (legal steps). Once we have some more “announce worthy” announcements, I will let you guys know! Now on to Burn Run!

Burn Run is a complicated story so I’m going to condense and simplify the main plot points for you. Basically, there’s this guy named Tom. Tom is a former soldier who now installs cable internet in Afghanistan. Talk about a dream job. After Tom finishes his latest installation, an old friend, Roman, tells him he needs Tom to go set up an airstrip outside of Herat. Tom doesn’t want to but accepts the job anyway.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., a Washington Post reporter screws over an intelligence agent she was sleeping with named James, who brought her classified information about how Iran has secretly restarted its nuke program. Except that’s not the story the Post prints. They go with the story that the U.S. has a bunch of spies in the Middle East setting up an internet that will spy on Iran. And guess who they name? Tom.

Iran’s head of government puts out an APB on Tom. Find and kill him at all costs. The closest CIA extraction operative to Tom is his buddy, Roman, but as soon as Roman reaches the airport, he’s captured by the local government. The U.S. calls Tom and gives him the bad news. He’s on his own. His best bet is to get to Kandahar, which is occupied by Britain. If he can get there, they can get him on a plane. Tom joins his translator, Mohammed, and off they go.

Along the way, Iran does everything in their power to capture Tom, sending helicopters, special army units, assassins. When their truck is damaged, Tom and Mohammed will have to continue on foot, forcing them to trust local Afghani tribes. The race to Kandahar gets slower by the hour. Do they have enough to make it? Or was this escape mission doomed from the start?

This is a script you would never ever ever ever ever write as a spec. It will take the average reader three hours to get through. And that’s a conservative estimate. The sheer number of people of different military backgrounds and different country backgrounds and different jobs is staggering and impossible to keep up with unless you’re taking meticulous notes.

The only time you would write a script like this is if a director or producer comes to you with the idea first, and therefore you’re only writing the script for one person (them). Or if you’re someone with a long esteemed career and people will read anything you write. Otherwise, this kind of script dies on the page because the burden of investment required to keep up with the story is insanely high.

Now, here’s the confusing part. I think this script *was* written as a spec. So how does that work? I’m guessing that LaFortune is in the unique position of having been an intelligence officer. His official status combined with a true story probably got this script enough attention to get it sold. But I’m telling you, 99.999999999% of the time you try and write a script this hard to follow, nothing will come of it.

With that said, there are some screenwriting lessons to learn from Burn Run.

One of the early plot threads has a fellow intelligence officer (Roman) coming in to rescue Tom. When that happened, I thought, “Hmm… that’s an interesting choice. If Roman is coming to rescue Tom, then that means Roman is being ACTIVE and Tom PASSIVE.” That’s not how you want to treat your protagonist. Your protagonist should always be the active one in the story.

Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when Roman was detained at the airport and the CIA had to call Tom and tell him he was on his own. In movie terms, “On your own” means ACTIVE, which, again, is how we want our protagonists. We want them moving, making choices, in charge of their own fate.

Now, you could add a secondary active plot into your story as long as your hero is involved in the first active plot. For example, let’s say that Tom is at Location A and he must get to Location B. That gives him an active plotline. Meanwhile, Roman can be in charge of meeting Tom at Location B. Now, you’re cutting between two active plotlines – Roman trying to get to Location B and Tom trying to get to Location B. But, eventually, you want something to happen to Roman so that Tom has the lone active plotline. Or, you can have Roman and Tom connect and become active as a team.

Another screenwriting concept Burn Run offers is DOUBLE URGENCY.

On Monday, we talked about Double Conflict. Today, we’ll talk about double urgency. Urgency is any ticking clock you place on the hero’s objective. That way, they don’t just have to do something. They have to do something in a limited amount of time. Here, we have the basic urgency of Iran’s intelligence trying to find and capture Tom. The fact that they’re closing in puts a ticking clock on Tom’s journey.

But we also learn that Kandahar, which is currently under British control, is being attacked by the Taliban and probably isn’t going to last more than 48 hours. Which means Tom wouldn’t be able to get on a plane and leave Afghanistan. This gives us double urgency – being chased by Iran AND Tom only having 48 hours to get out of the country.

Pro Tip: At the end of your urgency, always have an “OR ELSE.” “Or Else” becomes the stakes for your movie. So, in the case of Burn Run, you’d say, “Tom must get to Kandahar within 48 hours OR ELSE.” Or else the Taliban takes over the city and he can’t get out. Without an “or else,” urgency means nothing.

This is a difficult one to call because there’s some good stuff in here. For example, there’s this whole subplot about James and the Washington Post writer he slept with who ended up outing him to get her story published. She uses his love for her to try and get back into his good graces, in effect to write follow-up stories, and we’re wondering if James is going to realize she’s bad news and ditch her. Or if he’ll fall victim to her deceitful ways once again. It was a solid subplot.

But the script is so jam-packed with characters and exposition, you only occasionally understand what’s going on. I know from experience that if you’re still introducing characters past page 90, your story is too complicated. And Burn Run introduces characters past page 90. The script is right on the line between ‘worth the read’ and ‘wasn’t for me’ but I think I’m going to let my screenwriting philosophy dictate which side it lands on.

KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.

That’s my philosophy. And Burn Run kept it way too complicated.

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

What I learned: This is a good time to remind writers of the power of COMBINING CHARACTERS. If the reader’s mind is taxed by trying to remember people, it means they’re not enjoying your story. So you should always be looking to simplify things where possible. One of the oldest tricks in the book is to combine characters. If there are two characters who have similar functions in the story, why not combine them? Burn Run could definitely have benefited from this.