Genre: Satire/Comedy
Premise: Shunned by elite society as a member of the gig economy, a sociopathic dog walker infiltrates an exclusive L.A. community with designs of reaching the top of the neighborhood’s social ladder.
About: This script finished in the top 10 of last year’s Black List with 20 votes. This appears to be the brothers’ first big screenplay.
Writers: Briggs and Wes Watkins
Details: 100 pages

Lili Reinhart for Dylan?

A few people told me this wasn’t very good. But it does come from a sub-genre that I like. So we’ll see what happens. Oh yeah, a quick note. This script has a lot of twists and turns. It is best enjoyed reading it yourself rather than reading my synopsis. Because my synopsis WILL reveal spoilers.

24 year old Dylan is squatting in a Hollywood apartment, not doing anything with her life that I could discern other than her hobby of sneaking into rich peoples’ houses and pretending that she lives there until the owners come home and she has to sneak out.

One night, while hanging out in a Beachwood house, a dog-walker comes in and catches her there. The dog-walker doesn’t report her though. Instead, she tells Dylan that if she wants to sneak into peoples’ houses, she should walk dogs.

This is a lightbulb moment for Dylan, who immediately visits a dog park the next day and notices a beautiful woman named Jessica walking an even more beautiful dog. Jessica’s dog is the clear star of this dog park and so Dylan tries to befriend her to see if she can work for her.

When Jessica blows her off, Dylan follows her up to a Griffith Park hill trail, kills her, then kicks her dead body over the cliff. She takes the dog, heads back to the owners home, and informs the couple living there, Shira and Jacob, that Jessica has moved on and she will now be walking the dog.

Dylan does this for a while until the dog attacks and nearly kills another dog who happens to be walked by… the very girl who caught her in the first house and told her about this whole dog-walking gig. Dylan makes a run for it but eventually, our initial dog-walker, whose name is Anna, finds her.

She makes casual chit-chat with Dylan BEFORE KILLING HER!!! That’s right. Another murder. Who wrote this? Bing ChatGPT? And we’re only on page 45! With Dylan now dead, we start following Anna, who wants to do what Dylan was doing who wanted to do what Jessica was doing.

Anna makes friends with some other dog-walkers but when they suspect that she may have some information on the death of Jessica, she goes into self-preservation mode.  She then makes a bold move, blackmailing Shira and Jacob, knowing that if they don’t consider her dangerous, she’s done. Will Anna’s plan work?  Or will she end up like her predecessors?

In the words of the great Iggy Pop, “I’m a real wild one. And I like a wild fun. In a world gone crazy. Everything seems hazy. I’m a wild one. Oh yeah, I’m a wild one.”

This was a wild one, folks.

I’m still not even sure what I read. But I wouldn’t call it un-entertaining. Maybe uneven.

Whenever you’re trying to write sophisticated satire – which I’m pretty sure is what this script is – you have to be smarter than everyone in the room. There can’t be any clunky moments or frayed edges. We really have to feel, as the reader, that you are in total command of this commentary.

I didn’t feel that way. It started with the opening page.

The “whatever” is unnecessary. “Green as cash” is not a great visual simile. The road “slims and winds.” “Slims” is an awkward word to use there. Hidden behind walls of “Indian Laurel.” I don’t know what that means. Is there a famous Indian girl named Laurel who’s cloned herself and stands outside every house in Beachwood? “Gain a zero on their price tags” is an, arguably, try-hard line. “As we smear by them” is a strange description. I have to strain to imagine it.

I’m probably being too hard on this page but it definitely prioritizes style over clarity and that’s something I never endorse. Clarity must always come first in screenwriting. So, right from the start, I was wary.

Another problem is that I could never figure Dylan out. Since her whole life was a lie, I didn’t have anything to grab onto, relate to, or care about. There was so much distance between me and her that I never felt close enough to her story.

Why is she doing this? Where did this compulsion come from? Why is she squatting around in Hollywood and sneaking into peoples’ houses? We don’t know. We’re asked to buy that at face value and that’s not how storytelling works. We have to know why humans are doing the things they’re doing in order to become invested and interested.

A good example is the movie, Emily The Criminal. In that screenplay, the writer makes sure to take us through Emily’s struggles of trying to get a job, subsequently working a job she hates. So that when she’s given this opportunity to make money by stealing, we know why she’s doing it.

Meanwhile, I barely know Dylan and, out of nowhere, she kills this dog-walker and kicks her off a cliff and I’m just supposed to go with it?

Of course, I eventually realized why this was the case. Dylan wasn’t written to make it through the story. She gets killed. Which was a huge shock. But it would’ve resonated more had we felt some attachment to her.

To the Watkins credit, there’s some fun stuff going on here with the way the characters feed into the story. We meet this random dog-walker in that opening scene – the one who catches Dylan in the home, then we forget about her. Only to meet her again, 50 pages later, and then she becomes the main character.

Dylan also meets this character named Noah in the dog park early on the story. He disappears. But then, when Anna takes the lead role in the story, she meets Noah as well and also befriends him. So it was cool how these characters were woven into this weird tapestry of a screenplay.

But I just don’t know what to make of this thing. There are so many creative choices that make you go, “hmmmmm….” There’s an entire scene dedicated to expressing a dog’s anal glands in front of a small audience that felt more like it belonged in a 1998 Farrelly Brothers movie than in this sophisticated satire.

And then there are only really short dialogue scenes the whole movie before 80 pages in where we get this gigantic six page dialogue scene that comes out nowhere. Some of you might not think that’s a big deal. But screenplays have a rhythm. And if you establish that rhythm only to completely upend it, it’s jarring. The reader isn’t sure what to make of it.

However, I will say this. This script is the most unpredictable script in the Top 10 of last year’s Black List. It’s weird. It’s kinda fun. Even though it has problems, it does leave an impression on you. For those reasons, I think it’s worth reading.

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

What I learned: I like when writers keep their character in a state of desperation. It forces the character to constantly act and solve problems, which often results in interesting dramatic situations. Just as Dylan gets the dog-walking job with Jacob and Shira, she gets kicked out of the apartment she’s squatting at. So now she doesn’t have any place to live. This places a question in the reader’s mind – What is she going to do now? – that compels them to keep reading to find out the answer. If she never would’ve gotten kicked out, that’s one less reason to care what happens next.

We also answer a screenwriting question that seems to be getting asked more and more every day: Is the character description dead?

Genre: Spy, 1 hour drama
Premise: A CIA director who heads up the “Lioness” division recruits a new female operative to embed into a Middle Eastern family in order to take down the patriarch, a high level target.
About: Where would Paramount Plus be without Taylor Sheridan? I’ll tell you where. THEY WOULDN’T EXIST. Sheridan keeps propping the streamer up and he’s done it again with his latest show, Lioness, which will feature Avatar star, Zoe Saldana.
Writer: Taylor Sheridan
Details: Just 46 pages

Taylor Sheridan is amazing.

I’ve said this before but I remember when he was just some name on the Black List, like everyone else. And he’s since turned his name into an empire. If it can happen to him, why can’t it happen to you? It’s 2023. Anything is possible. Except for nice weather in Los Angeles apparently.

Recently, Sheridan’s been running into a problem that very few people ever have to deal with. He’s got so many hits, he doesn’t have time to write anymore. Yet he’s still writing. He admitted he wrote the pilot to Tulsa King in a weekend. Did he try and top that by writing Lioness over an extended lunch?

At what point does the quality of the work begin to suffer? Cause for me it would’ve suffered on show #2. Sheridan is now on show #8. By the way, Tulsa King is a really fun time if you haven’t seen it. And you probably haven’t, since nobody has Paramount Plus. But it’s a great screenwriting class in scene-writing. Terrence Winter, the showrunner, makes every single scene a mini-movie. It’s well worth checking out.

Onto Lioness.

Joe is a high level CIA director who works out of Syria. She heads up something called the “Lioness” division, which was originally conceived because they needed female soldiers to pat down younger women in the Middle East. But the division has expanded massively since then and now, primarily, involves embedding a female operative into a family friendship in the hopes of setting up an assassination on the high level target male in the family.

But Joe has got a secret. When stuff gets bad, she’s not exactly someone you can depend on. In her most recent operation, when her operative is discovered, instead of sending in a team to rescue her, she orders the home and family to be blown up. Take out the high level target and, oh well, the collateral damage that is one of her own.

Cruz is a 23 year old Oklahoma City girl who somehow found her way in bed with some bad people, including drug dealer slash boyfriend, Edward. After a beatdown by Edward, Cruz has had enough and pummels him with a frying pan before running for her life. She runs straight into a marine recruiting office with Edward on her tail. The marine asks the arriving Edward if he’s got a problem. Edward angrily leaves with his tail between his legs.

Cruz takes the marine recruitment exam and scores off the charts. She later takes the physical exam and sets records. Not just girl records. She flirts with records that even the men have. The marines realize they’ve got a diamond in the rough and Cruz is fast tracked to several cool missions.

Several years later, she ends up in front of Joe. Both of these women are as cold as a Chicago winter so they don’t exactly get along. But Cruz agrees to be the latest lioness, where she’ll be embedded into a rich Afghanistan family by becoming friends with the daughter, who’s roughly Cruz’s age. As she makes first contact with the family, we quietly wonder if she’s just signed her own death warrant. Not from the family. But from her superior, the woman who’s supposed to protect her at all costs.

I don’t know how Taylor Sheridan does it. But he writes women that are kick-a$$ that in no way feel woke. 9 out of every 10 women written in Hollywood these days are amazing at everything they do without explanation. They are an army of Mary Woken Sues.

You never feel that when you read a Sheridan female character. Which is probably why his female characters are so much better than everyone else’s. For example, there’s an early scene where Cruz beats up a woman in Edward’s crew and Edward punches her in retaliation. I just don’t think anyone else in Hollywood would write that beat right now. They’d be terrified.

And that’s the problem. That beat rings true. Cause in the real world, drug dealers aren’t on Twitter worrying about getting canceled. They’re crazy violent psychopaths obsessed with how much money they’re making and they treat women the way you’d expect people like that to treat women. So it’s a moment that rings true to the audience and circumvents all this fake wishful thinking utopia nonsense that you see on TV these days.

If we feel that the writer is being honest, we’re way more likely to suspend our disbelief and go along with the story.

Beyond making the female characters feel genuine, he makes them awesome. The scene where Cruz takes a frying pan, wakes up Edward, starts beating him with it, then runs, with him chasing her through the city, where she finally ends up at the Marine recruitment office, is easily the best army recruit scene I’ve ever seen. It also makes this girl such a bad-a$$.

His other main female character is great too. I loved the scene where Joe is looking at her operative being compromised and she makes the call to get rid of her. It’s an uncomfortable moment that too many writers are afraid of writing these days. They’d say, “Oh, this makes Joe unlikable. So we can’t do that.” No, the fact that it’s such a controversial decision is what makes the character so interesting. It also sets up a great question for the remainder of the series. Will she do the same to Cruz?

Separate from that, I want to give props to Sheridan. I love his character introductions. And I noticed that WyldWrite put together a list of all the main character introduction of all the Oscar hopeful scripts this year. Props to him because I’m going to copy-and-past what he wrote.

The skinny is that he was surprised at just how weak all the character descriptions in these scripts were. Here they are…

—(SULLIVAN), a good-looking man of 35 or so,

HENRY PELHAM (mid-40s, disheveled)

JULIO STRASSERA, 55, thick-framed glasses, bulky mustache, and bags under his eyes. He combs his wet hair.
a boy of twelve: PAUL GRAFF, red-haired and pale and freckled and bespectacled.

MAREN (17, Mixed Race)

CHARLIE CULLEN, 36, small, sinewy and very pale. His hair is flecked with silver, his scrubs are bachelor white. Charlie is leached of colour, except for his eyes, they glisten.

CLOSE on the piercing blue eyes of CONSTANCE REID (”CONNIE” – 23).

PETER, 24, is dressed identically to his fellow commuters, though his suit is of a lighter shade and less broken in.
GAIL BISHOP, mid 40s, black, upright and unyielding.

TOM BURGESS (60s) walks his dog along rocky bluffs edging the sea. It’s a blustery day. Tom has the build of a lifelong athlete, though his face has become rugged with sun exposure. His broad shoulders are hunched with tension.

If you’re someone who’s always hated character descriptions, this is good news for you, since it’s proof positive that Oscar-worthy screenplays can have weak character descriptions.

But I will remind you that a lot of these are director-writers. They are also scripts that are written with an actor already attached. In both of these scenarios, character descriptions aren’t important because you’re not trying to create a visual for readers. Your focus is on the movie. And if you already have Denzel in your film, there’s no reason to spend five hours coming up with the greatest description of Denzel’s character ever.

However, if you’re writing specs, it’s important because you’re still in the stage where you’re trying to paint a picture for people so they can imagine the movie. If they can’t imagine the movie, why would they make the movie? Your job is to help them out in that department. And one of the many ways you can do this is by writing great descriptions for your main characters. Which Sheridan is consistently good at.

Here’s one of his early character intros, which I love…

“A MAN IN HIS 30S, thick beard, wears a t-shirt, ball cap on backwards, Oakleys, and blue jeans — looks like he was on the way to the mall then decided to go to war.”

I mean how much better is that than all the nonsense descriptions above?

Details matter. They are what’s going to elevate your screenplay. So don’t use directors who only care about what’s on screen and not as much about what’s on the page as excuses for why you don’t need to write detailed character intros. Or detailed anything, for that matter.

The only thing I didn’t like about this script was the ending. We were building up to this important moment where Cruz has to win over the family’s daughter in a shopping mall. The whole show depends on Cruz being able to infiltrate the family. And, yet, the daughter literally does all the work for her. Cruz doesn’t have to do anything and she’s in.

You want to do the opposite. Cruz should encounter a major obstacle and cleverly overcome it to get into the daughter’s good graces for the perfect climax to the pilot. That was a big enough error to bring this down from an “impressive” and probably has to do with Sheridan whipping this script together between pop-tart toastings.

But, overall, Hollywood’s current screenwriting superstar does it again.

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

What I learned: A great way to find a show is to identify one of these specialized military programs and create a show around them. Go do it right now! Google ‘special programs’ in the military. You could find yourself a show in the next ten minutes.

I asked ChatGPT and they suggested this one: “The United States Military Working Dog Program: This program trains and uses dogs for various military missions, including detecting explosive devices, conducting patrols, and providing security.”

Sounds like a show to me!

Darnit, I was going to release the newsletter today and have that be it. But now the Black List has come out and you know the game here at Scriptshadow. Once the Black List is out, I have to go over each and every one of the loglines! I have to make grand pronouncements, ignorant quips, praise certain concepts, shake my head at others. It’s a thing here at the site. Looks like I’ll have to release the newsletter tomorrow.

Okay, let’s get into it!

25 votes
Pure by Catherine Schetina
Obsessed with food purity, Hannah’s trip to her sister’s destination wedding descends into madness when she contracts a mysterious foodborne illness that threatens to destroy her from within.

Thoughts: Points for a unique conflict at the center of the story. I’ve never heard of an idea built around a foodborne illness. I’m a little frustrated as to the vagueness. It seems like this could be a horror script? That she turns into a zombie or something. Need more info!

22 votes
Court 17 by Elad Ziv
An over-the-hill tennis pro, trying to salvage her career, finds herself stuck playing the first round of the US Open over and over again against one of the top players in the world. The only way to stop the loop is to win the match, a seemingly impossible task due to how overmatched she is.

Thoughts: This one I have some history with as I helped Elad develop the original version of the screenplay. I’m still in love with the idea of a tennis player who gets trapped in a living hell of having to play the same unbeatable player over and over again. But it looks like the script has changed significantly since I left it as the main character is now a woman as opposed to a man. I was resistant to this choice when we were working on it (it was discussed) because I felt like ego needed to be a big part of the main character. And ego is more of a male thing. But maybe it was the female lead decision that put it over the top with voters. Who knows? Thanks to everyone here who read this script and gave notes on it.  I know it helped me see the script’s weaknesses better at the time and I know it was helpful to Elad as well. You are welcome to discuss it in the comments.  Do not feel like you need to be nice.  There is no preferential treatment here!  I still think it could be the greatest tennis movie ever made but, as Elad and I discussed at the time, the bar for that honor is pretty low, lol.

22 votes
Pumping Black by Haley Bartels
A desperate cyclist and his charismatic new team doctor concoct a dangerous training program in order to win the Tour de France. But as the race progresses and jealous teammates, suspicious authorities, and the racer’s own paranoia close in, they must take increasingly dark measures to protect both his secret and his lead.

Thoughts: Look at this. Two sports scripts in the top 3! Is this a new trend? The logline reads like a true story chronicling Lance Armstrong’s plight. But I would much rather this be a fictional movie as you have so much more leniency to make it cool. I like the hint of “increasingly dark measures.” Now you’re talking my language.

21 votes
Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier
An 18-year-old pregnant pizza delivery girl falls into an obsession with a stay-at-home mother who is new to the neighborhood.

Thoughts: A modern day Juno? I like the oddness of this logline. There’s something ironic about an 18 year old pregnant delivery girl. It’s not exactly who you expect to be delivering your pizza. And I love weird stalker movies. This could be good.

20 votes
Beachwood by Briggs Watkins & Wes Watkins
Shunned by elite society as a member of the gig economy, a sociopathic dog walker infiltrates an exclusive L.A. community with designs of reaching the top of the neighborhood’s social ladder.

Thoughts: Okay, this is a good logline. It’s built around an underdog. And what do we always say here at Scriptshadow? Everybody likes underdogs. Plus it looks like a fun ride – seeing if this person can start as a dog walker and end up being some sort of rich tech titan.

19 votes
A Guy Goes To Therapy by Shane Mack
When an emotionally stunted townie with no direction is left by his longtime girlfriend, he has no choice but to turn to an option he would have never considered: Therapy. As a result, his entire existence is thrown into flux and his life gets a whole lot worse before it can get better.

Thoughts: This one might be okay. There’s a little bit of irony in the concept. Townies aren’t “therapy” types. That tends to be reserved for the upper middle class and above. Liberal elites with rich people problems. So I like that contrast there. Are the stakes high enough here? That would be my question.

19 votes
Madden by Cambron Clark
After being forced into retirement by the Oakland Raiders, fiery former NFL head coach John Madden teams up with a mild-mannered Harvard programmer to rewrite his fading legacy by building the world’s first football video game. Based on a true story.

Thoughts: Wow! Three sports scripts in the top seven! The return of the sports movie!? Credit Adam Sandler and Hustle, I suppose, for opening the town’s mind up to sports film. I know everybody who loves sports and video games holds Madden Football up as the GOAT. I’m just not feeling this one. The creation of a video game? Not to be rude but who cares?

18 votes
Dying for You by Travis Braun
A low-level worker on a spaceship run by a dark god must steal the most powerful weapon in the universe to save his workplace crush.

Thoughts: You had me at spaceship! Our first sci-fi script of the list. I’m down with that. Looks like we’re looking at a sci-fi comedy, though. I’m not as excited about that. Just because comedy is so freaking hard and I can’t remember the last script I read that made me laugh out loud. But I’m willing to give this one a shot. Cause of the spaceship, of course.

18 votes
Sang Froid by Michael Basha
After a botched delivery of fresh blood, a world weary vampire and a pregnant nurse team up to rob a hospital of their supply.

Thoughts: The real question here is… is this as good as Vampire in Silicon Valley? This is a classic example of why the Black List needs to add genres. Cause I don’t know if this is a comedy, action, dark comedy, or drama script. I guess “world weary” implies comedy. But I still need more information to judge this one.

Context: Vampire in Silicon Valley is a logline ChatGLC came up with when I asked it to for a comedy about vampires.  Here’s the logline it gave me – In the high-tech world of Silicon Valley, a young and successful entrepreneur discovers that he is a vampire. As he struggles to maintain his humanity while navigating the cutthroat world of tech startups, he must keep his true identity hidden while dealing with the challenges of being a vampire in the modern age. With the help of his quirky and eccentric team, he must find a way to use his vampire powers to succeed in the competitive world of tech while also staying true to himself.

17 votes
Baby Boom by Jack Waz
When her sister’s gender reveal party triggers the apocalypse, a woman and her husband have to prove to themselves, and the world, that they’re responsible enough to save it.

Thoughts: This one made me giggle. I love the online backlash against gender reveal parties. I think it’s hilarious. If you’ve never seen the viral video of the dad who finds out he’s having a girl instead of a boy during their gender party and he has a fit, you gotta watch it. It’s hilarious. And I love that someone has taken that premise to the extreme and made one of these trigger the apocalypse. This could be really fun.

17 votes
Jambusters by Filipe Coutinho
A mystery about what paper jams can teach us about life. After an inexperienced detective starts investigating a death at the Paper Jam department of a major corporation on the verge of its centennial, she unwittingly embarks on a life-altering spiritual journey that unearths her small town’s dark secrets.

Thoughts: Now this concept I can dig. This reminds of the Black List of old. A weird idea. But still intriguing. A paper jam mystery? I am so in on this one!

17 votes
White Mountains by Becky Leigh & Mario Kyprianou
After an interracial couple in the 1960s has a horrifying encounter with a UFO, they set out to discover if it actually happened, or if it is just a case of folie à deux–madness for two. Based on the true story of Barney and Betty Hill.

Thoughts: You know that if it has to do with UFOs, I’m there. I’m actually really surprised at the list so far. A lot of these ideas are right up my alley. I’m not thrilled that it’s a true story UFO flick. But Betty and Barney Hill is one of the more interesting stories in UFO lore. There were a lot of layers to this one, starting with the fact that they were an interracial couple back at a time when it was really hard to be an interracial couple and, therefore, bringing attention to themselves was a dangerous move and yet they risked it because they believed they saw something extraterrestrial and that the world needed to know about it.

16 votes
Goat by Zack Akers & Skip Bonkie
A promising first-round draft pick is invited to train at the private compound of the team’s legendary but aging quarterback. Over one week, the rising star witnesses the horrific lengths his hero will go to to stay at the top of his game.

Thoughts: What is going on right now!?? Another sports script!? Definitely a trend at this point. I like this concept because it shows you that moving away from the expected setup is usually the better thing to do. Normally, this movie would play out on the team during a season. But it becomes a lot more intimate when it’s just two people all by themselves. It’s almost like the sports version of Ex Machina. Another promising entry!

16 votes
Resurfaced by Alyssa Ross
After Michael Phelps cements his status as the greatest Olympian of all time, he struggles to build a life and identity for himself outside the pool.

Thoughts: Okay, now things are just getting eerie. More sports! Another smart angle from a writer. If you show Michael Phelps winning a bunch of medals, it’s going to be boring. The more interesting story is, what is your life like when your entire childhood and young adulthood was built around a sport, you conquered that sport, and then retired at age 30. What do you do in life after that? I think that’s an interesting question.

15 votes
Oh The Humanity by Gillian Weeks
A dark comedy about the Hindenburg Disaster; or, the mostly true story about one of the biggest f–kups in history, the assholes who tried to cover it up, and the female gossip reporter who made some Nazis very angry.

Thoughts: You gotta love when a logline starts with, “A dark comedy about the Hindenburg Disaster.” We do have some unnecessary capitalization here in this logline. But I’m going to pin that on some assistant to the manager, not the writer. First time I’ve seen the f-word in a Black List logline. The Hindenburg will always be must-see TV so I’m curious about this one.

15 votes
There You Are by Brooke Baker
When a non-confrontational playwright loses her engagement ring, she must travel through Italy to get it back with a man who was supposed to be just a one-night stand, discussing love and lying along the way.

Thoughts: Hmmm… I have mixed thoughts on this one. I like the irony of someone who’s about to get married having to look for her ring with the man she just slept with. Although, unless the writer uses some high-tech writing wizardry, I suspect that this protagonist will be very hard to root for.

15 votes
Viva Mexico by Miguel Flatow
When a washed-up superhero gets betrayed by a Mexican government, he must lead a populist social movement to fight the Narcos, topple the government, and free the people.

Thoughts: Can’t say this is my favorite logline of the bunch. More bluntly, it’s my least favorite. I guess taking down the Narcos is good. But since this logline lacks specificity, it just feels like a generic movie in my head.

14 votes
Colors of Authority by Kevin Sheridan
Escaping his father’s shadow, James Sexton, the son of a Sheriff in Alabama joins the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department with lofty ambitions of one day becoming Sheriff himself. But these dreams quickly sour when he realizes that the department he serves is mired in corruption and a systemic culture of moral depravity. At war with powerful figureheads within the department, threats of death looming from all sides, James betrays the department’s code of silence in order to incriminate his father’s close friend, Sheriff Lee Baca. This is based on a true story.

Thoughts: We officially have the longest logline of the list so far. This is also the most serious sounding script. And it looks like the most ambitious script. There are a lot of things that it looks like the writer is trying to do in this story. Hopefully he can pull it off but I probably won’t read this one unless someone I know tells me it’s great.

14 votes
The Midnight Pool by Jonathan Easley
Burdened by the loss of his wife to a suicide cult, an embittered investigative journalist infiltrates an elite secret society, only to find something far more sinister.

Thoughts: I like elite secret societies. But not so much something “far more sinister.” I’m not a fan of those vague logline endings. There are a lot of scripts like this out there. So I’m going to reserve judgement until I read the script. Hopefully there’s a unique voice or a unique angle to the story that differentiates it from all the imitators.

14 votes
They Came From a Broken World by Vanessa Block
The year is 1955. The small town of Boon Falls has provided a local forest as refuge to aliens fleeing their war-torn planet. When Mia–young woman dealing with the trauma of her mother’s death–stumbles upon an Alien woman who needs her help, a series of haunting revelations in the refugee forest leads her to an unimaginable truth.

Thoughts: I love aliens. This feels, however, like one of those wishy-washy not-really-about-aliens type scripts that’s more about the metaphor than a riveting story. Not saying that dooms the script. But it’s much harder to makes those scripts pop. I’ll read anything with aliens in it, though.

13 votes
Dumb Blonde by Todd Bartels & Lou Howe
The origin story of Dolly Parton, following her rise through the male-dominated music scene of late 1960s Nashville.

Thoughts: And we have a new least favorite logline of the entries so far. I feel like you can cut and paste these loglines and just add a new quasi formerly big celebrity each time. Dolly Parton does have her fans, though.

13 votes
Pikesville Sweep by Brendan McHugh
After a young, newly widowed janitor in a small mining village is unexpectedly elected Mayor, she navigates a new relationship with a mysterious man from the city and tries to determine how to use her new position of power to confront the corruption that has plagued the town for years.

Thoughts: This one doesn’t have that big shiny hook in it anywhere. Which means it’s an execution-dependent screenplay. It used to be that if one of these made the Black List, it was a really good script because it meant it was so good that it overcome its weak logline. But these days, that’s less the case. So I’m lukewarm on this entry.

13 votes
Wild by Michael Burgner
A young woman is determined to protect a thief on the run when he holes up in her small town, even if it means revealing a darker, more violent secret of her own.

Thoughts: Lots of dark secrets in this Black List! I hope everybody can see for themselves how the lack of a special attractor (or a “hook”) hurts a logline. When there are little to no unique elements in a logline, we’re less likely to want to read it. I’d argue this logline doesn’t have a single unique word in it.

12 votes
Clementine by David L. Williams
Set in real time, a Colombian mother barely escapes a pawn shop shootout and goes on the run from her violent ex-husband, a terrifying mob boss, and a bloodthirsty hitwoman sent to collect an overdue debt, all while trying to keep her diabetic daughter safe.

Thoughts: HEY! It’s longtime Scriptshadow reader and contributor, David Williams. So happy to see him on the list this year. The man had to run into a grumpy Carson each and every time he submitted scripts for Amateur Showdown. But regardless of whether he advanced in competitions or not, he was never bitter. He was the opposite. He was always positive. And I have no doubt in my mind that that’s why he’s on the list today. He’s a great example to screenwriters everywhere about what happens when you keep doing the work and you stay positive. Congrats David!

12 votes
Fog of War by Peter Haig
When a retired war journalist returns to the outpost where her son was stationed to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, she uncovers unspeakable horrors.

Thoughts: Echoes of In The Valley of Elad here. And that’s why I’m worried about it. These dark super serious movies about investigating death are tough sells, especially in a time like this where everyone is looking for respite from all the darkness. The script will have to be really good to overcome this issue.

12 votes
Jingle Bell Heist by Abby McDonald
At the height of the holiday season, two strangers team up to rob one of New York’s most famous department stores while accidentally falling in love.

Thoughts: I like the irony of doing something bad on the ‘goodest’ holiday of the year. But, personally, as I’ve told you guys here before, I like my holiday movies to be heartwarming and uplifting. My favorite Christmas movie of all time is the ultimate heartwarmer, It’s a Wonderful Life. With that said, I’ll probably review this one before Christmas and, hopefully, it will prove me wrong.

12 votes
Let’s Go Again by Colin Bannon
When her domineering director makes her film the same scene 148 times on the final night of an exhausting shoot, actress Annie Long must fight to keep her own sanity as she tries to decipher what is real, and what is part of his twisted game.

Thoughts: One of the wildest writers out there right now. Definitely a guy who comes up with interesting concepts. This one is no different. It’s got a high concept feel and yet it’s completely original. Nobody’s ever written a movie like this before. That’s always a good sign. My only issue with Bannon is that his third acts get a little too wild for me. And this – “must fight to keep her own sanity” – sounds like it will continue that tradition.

12 votes
The Americano by Nico Bellamy & Chase Pestano
An everyday guy who accidentally starts working as a barista inside the CIA headquarters building gets lured into a spy mission by a beautiful secret agent, known only to him as Caramel Macchiato.

Thoughts: This logline made me chuckle. Again, guys, this is the power of irony in concept creation. When you think of something as big and sophisticated at the CIA, you don’t think about the fact that there’s a coffee shop inside the building. And baristas work there. It’s the perfect contrast. And the idea that one of these baristas gets recruited into a spy mission is really clever.

12 votes
The Boy Houdini by Matthew Tennant
New York, 1889. When young street urchin and aspiring magician Harry Houdini discovers a mysterious puzzle-box, he must use his talent for illusion and escape to unlock the box’s powerful secrets and keep it from the hands of a vengeful occult sorcerer hot on his tail.

Thoughts: Smart move to write a Houdini spec. Back in the 2000s, Houdini was a very popular subject in the spec world. But since none of scripts ever became movies, he fell out of fashion. However, he’s still a known property – an operating IP – and he’s an interesting guy whose life is perfect for movies, since he’s a magician. Color me curious.

11 votes
Match Cut by Will Lowell
While filming on location in Rome, a movie stuntman is mistaken for an infamous assassin, leading to 48 hours of madness as he’s chased through the city by both gangsters and police.

Thoughts: Okay, this is an example of a concept WITHOUT IRONY. Or maybe that’s a strong statement. It doesn’t have enough irony may be a better way of putting it. A movie stuntman is fully capable of running and fighting, shooting guns, and racing cars away from pursuers. So there’s little irony to the fact that he gets mistaken for an assassin. We all know he’s probably going to be okay since he does most of this stuff every day at work anyway. Maybe if they had said, “the world’s worst movie stuntman,” I’d be more interested.

11 votes
Mega Action Hit by Sean Tidwell
After Hollywood’s leading action star hits his head on set and wakes up thinking he’s a real-life action hero, he embarks on an international mission to track down a real stolen nuke before it’s too late.

Thoughts: This concept feels a little dated – like it could’ve conceived in 1998. But it is high concept. And it sounds a little funnier than Match Cut. It’s weird how The Black List always has two of these concepts back to back that are carbon copies of each other. It’s got to be because of some glitch in the voting process.

11 votes
Semper Maternus by Laura Kosann
On a private island off San Francisco, a nanny goes to work for a mother who is one of America’s most powerful tech entrepreneurs. Things slowly begin to devolve as the mother’s hyper-monitoring and surveillance become suffocating.

Thoughts: Another Ex Machina premise! And I’m not mad! I like these premises. They’re one of the most ideal setups for a budget-conscious movie. And I love nanny stories dating back to The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. Grab me a cradle on Amazon cause I’m down for this adventure.

11 votes
Subversion by Andrew Ferguson
When her family is abducted, a disgraced submariner must pilot a narco submarine to its destination in less than eight hours or her husband and daughter will be killed.

Thoughts: Andrew is a trusted member of the Scriptshadow newsletter and it looks like he’s been paying attention to my ramblings! As this script, more than any other script on the list, has the GSU in place! Nice job, Andrew!

11 votes
Total Landscaping by Woody Bess
A day in the life of the employees of Four Seasons Total Landscaping and its neighboring businesses on November 7th, 2020: the day an average, working-class strip mall in East Philadelphia became the focal point of the most divisive presidential election in American History.

Thoughts: I was thinking the other day. What we really need in movies right now? More than anything else? Is more politics. Cause I don’t think there’s enough. For those new to the site who don’t know me, I am emitting extreme amounts of sarcasm right now. I just can’t get pulled down into that depressing hole anymore. Concepts like this literally make me physically ill. With that said, I know many people in the industry can’t get enough of this stuff. So don’t go by my assessment of these concepts.

10 votes
Cheat Day by Emma Dudley
When a young woman in a decade-long heterosexual relationship realizes she needs to explore her bisexuality, she and her boyfriend institute a “Cheat Day:” 24 hours in which they can do whatever–and whomever – before deciding whether to get engaged or break up.

Thoughts: Echoes of Hall Pass, which should’ve been better than it was (million dollar spec that movie, by the way, from the original Project Greenlight winner, Pete Jones). What I loved about that movie was how the guys were so excited to have their hall pass but then they couldn’t get laid if they paid someone. The problem with these concepts is always the same. The guys given the chance to be with someone else never actually do. Someone needs to write a version of this concept where they actually have sex with other people. That’s where you’re going to find a truly compelling movie.

10 votes
Going for Two by Kevin Arnovitz
An openly gay NFL quarterback finds his meticulously-planned life upended on and off the field when he falls for a charming high school teacher during the most important season of his career.

Thoughts: Well I can definitely see why this made the Black List. But I’m not reading it unless it’s the real life story of Bachelor fence-hopper Colton Underwood. That’s a biopic I can get behind. No pun intended.

10 votes
Popular by Marley Schneier
GOP strategist Lee Atwater won the presidency for George H.W. Bush in 1988, and his campaign changed politics forever–and gave him the worst reputation in America. Now, Lee is on his deathbed, and he needs to tell God his side of the story… before it’s too late.

Thoughts: It took waaaaay too long to get to another political script. At most, it should’ve taken 1 slot. The fact that I had to wait this long is a crime. Can’t wait to not read this one.

10 votes
Ravenswood by Evan Enderle
To save her friend, a maid in a decaying manor must unravel the secrets of its inhabitants while confronting spirits, her own terrifying abilities and the very real horrors of Depression-era America lurking outside the door.

Thoughts: If this is a ghost story, it’s one of the most roundabout ways of describing a ghost story that I’ve ever come across. But if it’s got ghosts, I’m in! By the way, note how much better those high ranking concepts were compared to what we’re getting down here in the lower ranks. There’s clearly a difference in quality.

10 votes
The House in the Crooked Forest by Ian Shorr
A mother and her young son fleeing Nazi-occupied Poland are forced to take shelter from a blizzard in an isolated manor, where they discover the Nazis may be the least of their worries.

Thoughts: Ian is a longtime Black List contributor and he tends to have high concept ideas. This one is no exception. My only issue is that he should tell us what’s in the manor. Let us decide if it’s worse than Nazis. We shouldn’t have to take the logline’s word for it.

10 votes
The Pack by Rose Gilroy
A group of documentarians braves the remote wilderness of Alaska in an effort to save a nearly extinct species of wolves. When the crew is brought back together at a prestigious awards ceremony, tensions flare as a deadly truth threatens to unravel their work. The team lived through the harsh elements of the wild but will a secret they share survive the night?

Thoughts: What. Is. THE SECRET!? It’s not a logline unless you tell us what the secret it. The secret is the hook. You can’t deny people that.

10 votes
Vitus by Julian Wayser
In 1518, a Dancing Plague overtook the city of Strasbourg in the Holy Roman Empire. Hundreds of people danced themselves to death over the course of a summer and no one knows why. Encircling medieval medicine, the uncanny, and the origins of mass hysteria, Vitus is a wildly visual exploration of a crucial (but little-known) moment in European history.

Thoughts: Highly curious about this one. I’ve heard of the dancing plague before. I always thought it was really weird. Whenever you have something this bizarre, it opens the door to tell a story about it. So kudos to Wayser for identifying the potential behind this weird historic moment.

10 votes
What We Become by Amy Jo Johnson
A successful author/wife/mother plans a trip to a bucolic island to crack her next book and finds herself in a surprising situation.

Thoughts: The Scriptshadow part of me wants to grumble about how the logline needs to tell us what the surprising situation is. However, I want to share a quick story with you.  When I first moved to LA, I was out one night with a buddy and we stumbled upon a couple playing pool. The girl, shockingly, was Amy Jo Johnson (Power Rangers). The guy, it turned out, was not her boyfriend, but rather, her brother. We played a game of pool together and Amy was the sweetest most fun person you’ve ever met, joking and giving us crap the entire game. To this day, I kick myself for not getting her number but I just figured, what would a Hollywood actress want to do with me? These days, I know that you never know unless you ask! So you know what? This is one logline where I don’t care that the writer didn’t tell us what the hook was. Amy Jo Johnson, you get a pass!  Also, apropos of nothing, are you single?

10 votes
Who Made The Potato Salad? By Kyle Drew
A family’s Christmas dinner goes awry when a xenomorphic demon starts to duplicate and imitate each member of the family. What does it want? To show them their greatest fears.

Thoughts: I read these scripts all the time and while they make pretty good loglines, trying to write them is bit of a demonic task in its own right. They all end up reading the same. So you have to have a very unique voice to make them work.

9 votes
It’s a Wonderful Story by Alexandra Tran
In the aftermath of WWII, a traumatized Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart use the making of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE to attempt to find a way back into normalcy.

Thoughts: It’s like the Black List is reading my mind now! I told it my favorite Christmas movie was It’s a Wonderful Life, then 10 loglines later, it’s giving me an It’s A Wonderful Life script. Wait a minute. Does this have something to do with AI? Is this ChatGTP? Has the singularity almost begun? We are all in the Matrix.

9 votes
The Sister by Alexander Thompson
Identical twins Aurora and Gabrielle live in a secluded commune where all twins are raised knowing that in adolescence, one of the two of them will abruptly turn into a terrifying monster. Discovering the full truth of their situation one fateful night, the sisters plot their escape into an outside world they know little about.

Thoughts: Getting some strong young adult novel vibes here. I have issues with concepts where the buy-in is based more on the writer feeling like they’re granted an automatic buy-in rather than the buy-in actually making sense. It feels like the only reason one of the twins turns into a monster is because the writer needs that to happen for their story. I might be wrong. But unless there’s a believable reason for why that happens, this one probably isn’t for me.

8 votes
An Oakland Holiday by Yudho Aditya & Emma Dudley
When a neglected and lonely Southeast Asian Princess goes undercover in an Oakland high school to live out her dream of being a normal teen, she discovers that happy endings come with many hard lessons about life, love, and humility.

Thoughts: I don’t know about you. But many of my dreams start off with the words, “An Oakland Holiday.” This is a tried and true concept. Special Person hides out in normal society. It’s samey. But it usually works. And this one has a slightly different angle with the Asian connection.

8 votes
Better Luck Next Time by Kristen Tepper
Two best friends run a successful underground service taking womens’ toxic exes on humiliating dates, but their friendship is put to the ultimate test when an old mark plots his revenge.

Thoughts: I feel like I’ve heard this one before. Either someone on the site pitched it to me or we’re all drawing ideas from the same popular culture pot and none of us is as original as we think we are.

8 votes
I Love You Now And Forever by Robert Machoian
After exhausting all financial options to save their dying daughter, Frank and Abby are forced into a final act of desperation: rob a local bank.

Thoughts: What would you do to save someone you love? Always an interesting question and, therefore, potent fuel for a movie. However, robbing a bank seems pretty standard. Didn’t John Boyega just make a movie with this exact same setup. Denzel has also made one before. John Q I think it was called? Not original enough for my taste.

8 votes
Jerry! By Greg Roque
One man ran what was declared to be the worst TV show of all-time. Responsible for the degradation of American society. All while topping Oprah in the ratings. This is the over the top, insane true story of how Jerry Springer went from ambitious young attorney, to the Mayor of Cincinnati, to the undisputed King of Trash TV. And along the way, accidentally helping to create the world we live in today.

Thoughts: You know how I feel about biopics. But Jerry Springer was a pretty funny footnote in American TV history. They would literally just let people fight each other on stage, lol. Imagine if they tried to air that show now.

8 votes
Pop by James Morosini
A kid blackmails his favorite pop star into being his best friend.

Thoughts: Shortest logline on the list. It also covers familiar territory. The last few years we’ve had movies about people blackmailing or stalking social media personalities. A pop star feels like a 2003 movie. But, it all comes down to execution. If the script’s good, it will make up for it.

8 votes
The Demolition Expert by Colin Bannon
Blasting out of prison after being double crossed by the Mastermind of a heist, a Demolition Expert uses his genius with explosives to enact revenge on the Caper Crew who set him up while simultaneously picking up the pieces of his personal life.

Thoughts: Why do I get the feeling that Michael Bay is going to take a serious look at this one?

8 votes
The Homestead by Bradley Kaaya Jr.
A troubled bi-racial, inner-city teen is sent to live with his white, conservative grandfather on his ranch for the summer. Things take a turn when the two are forced to overcome their generational and racial differences while defending the ranch from a ruthless, backcountry gang.

Thoughts: I had no idea they were making a real life adaptation of Webster.

8 votes
The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Becca Gleason
A horror thriller spin on the Brothers Grimm fairytale in which 12 female college students fight against a group of dude bros trying to take over their female-only space.

Thoughts: Whoa, these last couple entries are like taking a time machine back to the 2019 Black List! Down with the dude bros! Actually, “Down with the Dude Bros” is a better title.

8 votes
Undo by Will Simmons
A down-on-his-luck former getaway driver comes into possession of a mysterious watch that allows the user to go back in time by one minute. As he starts to uncover its uses and gets pulled into one last heist by his former crew, a dangerous group after the technology gets on his tail and will stop at nothing to get the watch back.

Thoughts: I’ve always been intrigued by mini time travel stories. My worry with them has always been that, not surprisingly, they feel too small. There *is* something to this idea, though. I think he needs to be a race car driver though, not a getaway driver. This is the year of sports scripts, right? It’d be cool if you could keep rewinding on the race course to correct your mistakes.

8 votes
Weary Ride The Belmonts by Josh Corbin
After staging his death many years ago, an aging gunslinger is forced to reunite with his outlaw daughter during the dying days of the west.

Thoughts: I could complain about the lack of a hook here. But Westerns rarely have hooks to them. So it’s one of those delios where you’re going to have to read the script to see if it’s good. Who’s going to take care of that?  Oh yeah, that’s me.  I am literally the only person who reads screenplays in Hollywood.

7 votes
42.6 years by Seth Reiss
After waking up from a failed experimental lifesaving procedure in which he was cryogenically frozen for 42.6 years, a young man realizes he wants his ex-girlfriend back. He’ll have to overcome the fact that while he hasn’t aged a day, she’s lived an entire life without him

Thoughts: Seth Reiss is one half of the writing team who wrote The Menu. And you guys know how much I liked that script. I’m trying to get a grip on the genre here. But “42.6” tells me that it’s probably a comedy. It’s certainly a unique idea, an update on Harold and Maude. Could be good!

7 votes
Break Point by Zachary Joel Johnson
Courted by colleges and sponsors alike, a burnt-out tennis prodigy fights to maintain dominance against her Academy rival as she hurtles toward the existential decision of turning Pro–a choice that will force her to double down on her dream or walk away from the future she’s fought for.

Thoughts: Tennis scripts are everywhere! And yet they still haven’t made a good tennis movie. Go figure. I’m looking for the unique attractor in this one. I’m slightly confused in that the main character seems young but they’re also a burnt out veteran? One thing I’m learning, though, is that women rule when it comes to tennis scripts. Sorry dudes!

7 votes
Caravan by Lindsay Michel
During the Tang Dynasty, a young Persian woman joins a Silk Road caravan to solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance‚ but must fight for survival when her fellow travelers realize there is a shapeshifting demon hiding in their midst.

Thoughts: Tennis and demons are the theme of Black List 2022. A tennis demon script anyone? If you’ve got a good idea, pitch it to me. I like the setting here. I don’t know much about it and that’s one of the things I like when I open a script. I like to learn about new things. Be taken to new places. So I’m willing to give this one a try.

7 votes
Gather the Ashes by Vikash Shankar
Two brothers, Dev and Siddharth, hope to break free of London’s foster care system when they inherit their estranged family’s old farmhouse in India, but they find something sinister lies in the roots of their family tree as they attempt to discover their past.

Thoughts: Another sinister thing hiding in the shadows. Secrets, demons, sinister things, too many double faults, dude-bros. I’m trying to keep up with the madness that is Black List 2022!

7 votes
Himbo by Jason Hellerman
A naive male stripper attempting to start his life over finds himself in the crosshairs of his boss’ increasingly violent divorce.

Thoughts: This one should give all of you hope because the writer doesn’t have a manager, an agent, or a producer. It made the Black List entirely on its own merit. How bout that!

7 votes
It’s Britney, B—ch by Cerina Aragones
A dramatic and musical character study of global pop icon Britney Spears, leading up to her very public unraveling at a Tarzana hair salon, and her recent courtroom victory to win her freedom back.

Thoughts: If someone didn’t write it, ChatGPT was going to. We finally got our Britney Spears biopic everyone. Stab me in the face baby one more time.

7 votes
Life of the Party by Julie Mandel Folly & Hannah Murphy
In this contemporary reimagining of Frankenstein, two teenage feminists struggle to create the perfect boyfriend, only to watch their experiment deteriorate as he succumbs to the ultimate perpetrator of casual high school misogyny: the football team.

Thoughts: This one sounds like it could be fun. A reimagining of Weird Science.

7 votes
Ripple by Max Taxe
When a time traveler starts meddling with the past just as Miles finally meets the love of his life, he must battle ever shifting timelines to find her again.

Thoughts: I’ll read anything with time travel but this logline is confusing. It doesn’t say in the first part of the logline that she disappears. So why does he need to find her again?

7 votes
Wildfire by Chaya Doswell
After accidentally starting a wildfire, 7-year-old Lu, mute and from an abusive home, slyly tricks Merribelle, a hardworking trans woman, into kidnapping her – sparking a beautifully unexpected bond with a devastating expiration date.

Thoughts: This one covers some huge topics. Muteness, abusiveness, a trans woman. And yet the thing I’m most hooked by is the wildfire.

6 votes
Below by Geoff Tock & Greg Weidman
Fresh out of a spell in prison a man attempts to set his life right by working a mysterious job that requires him to seek out life forms hidden amongst us.

Thoughts: Okay, I kinda dig this one. We’ve seen a lot of movies where people come out of prison and get blue collar jobs that they hate because they pay nothing. This throws a twist into that. A guy gets a job looking for hidden life forms. That’s up my alley.

6 votes
Black Dogs by Kieran Turner
Based on the novel by Jason Burhmester. In 1973, Led Zeppelin was robbed of nearly a quarter million dollars in cash while playing a series of concerts in New York City. The case was never solved. We follow four young friends from the streets of Baltimore as they attempt to pull off what is possibly the most brazen heist in Rock & Roll history.

Thoughts: I still think that script a Scriptshadow reader wrote about a heist of Jim Morrison’s grave was the best rock and roll heist script I’ve read. But this sounds pretty cool too. Although I wonder how people are going to sympathize with characters robbing beloved legends.

6 votes
Black Kite by Dan Bulla
After a devastating wildfire wipes out a small California town, a teenage girl is missing and presumed dead. A year later, an obsessive mother and cynical arson investigator begin to suspect that she’s still alive…and in the clutches of a predator.

Thoughts: Lot going on in this idea. I’m not sure if the variables all come together harmoniously. But it does feel like it’s going for it. As long as you’re going for it with your idea, you’re better off than writing something safe and neutral.

6 votes
Chatter by Chris Grillot
Stranded in a small Cajun town, a young mother battling a painkiller relapse must fight to save her daughter from a demonic Tooth Fairy.

Thoughts: I’m noticing with some of these lower ranked scripts, the loglines have buzzwords but they don’t come together nicely. But! “Chatter” does bring us another demon. I think we can safely say, at this point, it’s the year of the demon!

6 votes
Craigshaven by Nicole Ramberg
A troubled teen must confront a local legend when the reappearance of a missing classmate and a fabled ghost ship unravel clues to her own mother’s disappearance.

Thoughts: I would rebuild this logline to focus exclusively around the ghost ship if possible. I don’t think you can bring up a ghost ship casually in a logline (“there’s a missing person…. Oh and then there’s a ghost ship by the way…”)… It’s got to be the central focus.

6 votes
Eternity by Pat Cunnane
After death, everybody gets one week to choose where to spend eternity. For Joan, Larry, and Luke, it’s really a question of who to spend it with.

Thoughts: This choice is easy. Baby Yoda and ChatTPG.

6 votes
Marriage Bracket by Liv Auerbach & Daisygreen Stenhouse
Ten years after a group of girlfriends bet on which of them would be the last to get married, their adult lives and relationships are completely upended when they discover the $80 they drunkenly invested in Bitcoin is now worth $5.2 million.

Thoughts: A fun idea with a couple of problems. Bitcoin is no longer a positive word. But it is a cool way to create a ‘windfall’ storyline. Second problem is, what does a bet about who will be the last to get married have to do with investing money?

6 votes
The Seeker by Camrus Johnson
A childhood folktale comes to life when children of the neighborhood start to go missing after playing hide and seek. A group of friends known as “The Finder Four” set out to get answers, but instead, find themselves sucked into a fantasy fear-factor world with only one way out… Based on Daka Hermon’s Scholastic YA Novel, HIDE & SEEKER.

Thoughts: Concept gets a little too complicated as the logline goes on but kids going missing during hide and seek is a good idea.

6 votes
The Trap by Julie Lipson
Twin-sister trapeze artists wrestle their own inner demons amid the push-pull of career, stardom, and family, all while performing in the most harrowing production of their lives.

Thoughts: We’ve got our second set of twins on the list. This is the first trapeze concept on the Black List in over five years, if my memory serves me correctly. If this story explores the reality of being a trapeze artist, I’ll be into it. But if I read this and I know more about trapeze artists than the writer, we’ve got a problem on our hands. This is something that happens often, by the way. A writer will write about a topic and the reader will end up knowing more about it than they do. This can NEVER happen. You must be the extreme expert on your subject matter.

6 votes
You’re My Best Friend by Mary Beth Barone & Erin Woods
Lily is mature, thoughtful, artistic, and… awkward. Rosie is sweet, caring, and popular with dreams of being a star. When Lily breaks down in tears on her 15th birthday because she has no friends, her Aunt Beth (a hot shot at a big movie studio) devises a plan. Aunt Beth agrees to jump start Rosie’s acting career as long as she can convincingly play the role of a lifetime: Lily’s best friend. Aunt Beth has the scheme and Rosie has the talent. All they have to do is get away with it.

Thoughts: This feels a bit first-scripty. I’m not sure I understand the logline, to be honest. Which is a good lesson, by the way. A lot of people think that the more you write, the more clear your idea will be. When, in actuality, the opposite is true. The more you distill it down, the clearer it will be to the potential reader.

The scripts I’m most looking forward to are Pure, Beachwood, Baby Boom, Jambusters, White Mountains, Goat, Clementine, Let’s Go Again, Vitus, The Americano, Semper Maternus, Subversion, and Undo. I’m too close to Court 17 to be able to judge it objectively. What about you guys? What do you want to read???

If you’re interested in getting a logline consultation from me, they’re $25 and they include a 150-200 word analysis, a 1-10 rating for both concept and logline construction, and a logline rewrite. If you want a full screenplay consult, I offer that as well. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com and we’ll get started right away!

Why do Ryan Coogler and James Cameron get to write mega-scripts while you’re obnoxiously constrained by the script-length Gods?

We are about to be hit with two of the longest studio releases of the decade. We’ve got Black Panther 2, clocking in at over 2 hours and 45 minutes. And we’ve got Avatar 2, which is somewhere north of 3 hours.

This got me thinking about the age old question of script length. When I first got into screenwriting, I was told (and promptly ignored) that your script should never extend beyond 120 pages. As time went on, that number dropped to 110 pages.

Despite this unofficial or official (depending on who you talk to) page rubicon, the newbie screenwriter receives mixed messages every time they go to the theater. They’re told their scripts have to be 110 pages as they watch Avengers Endgame arrogantly clock in at 150 pages. How does a young and confused newbie screenwriter reconcile this?

Over time, I’ve learned that the script length question is a nuanced one. There are certain genres that have low page counts and other genres that have high page counts. There are also additional variables that affect page length, all of which make up a complicated picture, one that seems to change depending on which angle you view it from.

But the basic equation works like this…

Character Count + Location Count + Plot Complexity = Page Count

Less characters = less characters to develop = less pages

Less locations = less situations to set up = less pages

Simple plots = less explaining = less pages

The horror movie I reviewed at the beginning of the month, Deadstream, about a single character live-streaming inside a haunted house… that movie was 90 minutes long. And, for those who don’t know, one page of screenplay equals one minute of screen time (this is why screenplays are written in that weird spaced out manner – to match out page time to screen time).  So 90 pages is usually where you’re going to be when writing a 1-3 character movie in 1-3 locations.

If you prefer to write non-contained thrillers, you’re going to need more page space. The word “thrill” implies a fast pace which means you’re still keeping the page count low. But these movies have a few more locations and characters, which should put them closer to 100 pages.

“Taken” is a good example of this. Tiny character count (only two main characters – the father and the daughter). Our hero is constantly on the move. Final page count for the script: 101 pages.

If you move over to comedies, these tend to work best in the 105-110 page range. Like thrillers, they need to move fast. And since most comedy plots are bare bones, you don’t need to spend a lot of time plotting. Even the slightly complicated storyline of The Hangover didn’t affect the page count that much, as the screenplay came in at 111 pages.

When you move up to action or action thrillers (Bond, Fast and Furious, Mission Impossible), now you’re tempting the page count Gods, moving closer to that most evil of script overseers: PAGE 120. This is because you’re visiting more locations, which requires more setup, as well as more explanation. And managing any plot big enough that we’re jumping to entirely different cities requires more time on the page. So these scripts will hover around that 120 page zone.

When you add sci-fi or fantasy into that mix, you really start struggling to keep the page count under 120. That’s because in addition to everything else you’re doing, you’re also adding mythology to the recipe. You need scenes that show how your world works (The Matrix spent 25 pages setting up the rules of its world). You also need more description than your average script because you have to explain all this stuff you’ve invented in your imagination. This can really bulk scripts up.

In general, however, the two things that have the biggest influence on your page count are your character count and your plot complexity.

It takes time to adequately set up a character. You need to show who they are in their everyday life. You need to show us what their job entails. You need to establish their relationships with other people. You need to introduce their flaw. That takes time.

If you then have two major characters – or three, or four – you can see how that could start chewing up page space. Cause you have to do the exact same thing for all those characters. This is why movies like Black Panther 2 and Avatar 2 are so long. They’re not only covering Black Panther and Jake. They’re covering the lives of the many many people around them. Like that Ironheart girl (the Iron Man offshoot). She’s going to need 10 pages of setup easy. That’s a lot of pages!

Also, to be clear, when I talk about character count, I’m talking about legit characters who have major roles. I’m not talking about the waitress or some loser who comes in for one scene to provide exposition. I’m talking about characters who have at least five scenes in your movie. The more of those characters you have in your script, the more pages you better prepare for.

The other thing that adds a lot of pages is plot. But it’s not just the plotting itself that brings your page count up. The more complex the plot, the more extensive the exposition. It requires more scenes with characters explaining things to other characters: what’s going on, what they’re after, where it is, how they’re going to get it. And that information is constantly changing, which requires another set of extensive exposition scenes.  Watch an Avengers movie and track how often characters talk about what they need to do and how they’re gong to do it.  It’s a lot!

Complexity of plot = more exposition, and more exposition is a page-eater. Your Fast and Furious crew discussing how they’re going to break into the White House could take up 5 pages easily.

Bringing this back to Black Panther 2 and Avatar 2: Both these movies have extremely extensive plots and tons of characters. I’m amazed that they’re able to keep the scripts under 300 pages with how much territory they cover.

The question then is, why aren’t we allowed to do that in our scripts? This question requires a multi-faceted answer that I don’t have the time to get into. But the bullet points are, you’re writing a script to win a reader over. Ryan Coogler is making a movie to win over an audience. Two completely different scenarios. Look no further than the exit point options for each. Once Ryan Coogler has you at his movie, you’re stuck there. A reader, however, can stop reading your script the second they get bored. And if they’re wavering on page ten and see that they still have 120 pages to go, believe me, they’re going to give up on your script.

But the more nuanced answer is that you *are* allowed to write long scripts. You just need to know all the dramatic tricks in the book to suspend time. One of the reasons Titanic could be 3 hours and 14 minutes is because James Cameron is a master at suspending time. His entire story is built around dramatic irony (we know the iceberg is coming and the characters do not) which creates a strong line of both anticipation and suspense, each of which help us forget time. And that’s just one of the many tricks he uses.

If you know how to do that, then, theoretically, you can write a 300 page screenplay. I’m being serious. If you know how to make time go away in the reader’s head, they won’t check the page length. Cause they won’t want your story to end.

Unfortunately, this is a really hard thing to do. The best authors on the planet struggle to do it every time they sit down and write a book. So it’s going to be extra hard for anyone without a lot of writing experience.

And that’s where the real problems with page count lie. The people who usually write the longest screenplays are the newbies who know the least about screenwriting. They are in that wonderfully ignorant stage where they believe everything they write is gold. But it isn’t gold. It’s trash. Which means that readers are conditioned to think that any long script from another amateur will also be trash. Which is unfair, I guess. But, guess what? Life is unfair.

To summarize, your script’s length will be determined by the genre, concept, and content. More characters equals more pages. More intricate plots equals more pages. So watch out for both. The more you have to explain and describe (think sci-fi and fantasy), the more pages you’re gong to add. Use this information to make informed decisions about which scripts to write.

I’m not saying don’t write a long script. Some stories require more time. But you do want to be realistic and understand that the industry isn’t accepting of longer screenplays from unproven talent. So, if you’re going to write one, make sure you have a plan for distilling and eliminating time to such an extent that the reader never thinks about the page length while reading. They’re too busy enjoying your story.

Good luck!

P.S. – Newsletter coming to your Inboxes tomorrow night with an AWESOME(!!!) script that seems to have been forgotten by time.  Oh, and don’t forget to e-mail me if you want a script or logline consultation.  $100 off if you mention this article!!! (carsonreeves1@gmail.com)

Where is Zendaya’s movie on this list??

It is time for the official RE-RANKING of the Black List. As we all know, at this point, the Black List ranking system is all over the place.  It’s being manipulated by managers and agents.  It’s promoting agendas that don’t include the quality of the script.  It ignores scripts from seasoned writers with no clear delineation about who’s allowed and who’s not allowed to be on the list.  We all have major reservations at this point.  That’s not to say I think the list is irrelevant.  There are still good scripts on it.  They’re just not ranked correctly.  Which is why you have me!  I’ve read the scripts so I can tell you what’s good and what’s nowhere close to good.  You can see the original rankings here.

There are twelve scripts on this list I haven’t read yet (Operation Milk and Cookies, Believe Me, Shania, Hello Universe, A Hufflepuff Story, St. Mary’s Catholic School Presents The Vagina Monologues, Lift, Sleep Solution, Thicker Than Ice, The Unbound, The Way You Remember Me, Ways to Hinder Winter). Eight of them I would rather lower myself into a boiling pot of water and die slowly inside, than read, so it’s safe to say they’d probably be non-factors on this list. But I will review a few more and, if anything is good, I’ll retroactively add it to this list. I’m excited to see what the true Top 10 looks like! We’re going from worst to best, here.  Let’s get started!

59. Candlewood by Jason Benjamin and 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.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: This was one of the most baffling entries on the list. The story is so light and airy and devoid of conflict it’s almost as if it doesn’t exist. Everything from the random choice in time (set in 1992???) to the lesbian subplot that feels more like a ploy to get on the list than a genuine story choice, it’s one of those scripts you see on the list and just shrug your shoulders cause you have no idea why it got there above many more deserving screenplays.

58. Lady Krylon by 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 th ereal world.
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: To use an apt analogy, this script was like quickly scribbled graffiti art. It was so messy, I didn’t know what the artist was trying to paint. At the end of this script, the writer is making up mythology on the spot. Nothing is set up. It’s all random. I don’t now how this made the list.

57. Fiendish by 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.
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: A horror script without enough original scares and without enough scares period.

56. Whittier by Filipe Coutinho and 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.
Votes: 15
Original Rank: 12 (Tie)
Thoughts: I remember reading this logline and thinking, “This is either going to be a huge miss or great.” Cause it wasn’t your typical setup for a movie. I liked that. But whenever I see these loglines with pieces that don’t organically connect, it almost always bleeds into the screenplay itself. And that’s what happened. It had a “Chinatown written by a first-time screenwriter” vibe to it.

55. Loud by 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.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: Nooooooo! I was so looking forward to this script. It had one of those newish high concept ideas I’m always looking for. The big critique I had for this one was that it was unsophisticated. And it’s trying sooooo hard to be the opposite. So every time it tries, it shines an even brighter light on how it’s failing. It didn’t feel like the writer had enough life experience to know what he was writing about.

54. It Was You by 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.
Vote: 9
Original Rank: 39 (tie)
Thoughts: The Shop Around The Corner or You’ve Got Mail but not nearly as good.  Wonky rule-set that doesn’t really make sense.

53. Skeleton Tree by 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.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: If the central relationship in your story isn’t working, nothing will work. And the central relationship between these two boys didn’t work. With that said, if you liked “Mud,” you might want to check this out.

52. The Dark by 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.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: A lot of you rightly pointed out that this was, basically, Attack the Block. Writers make this mistake all the time (especially young ones). They inadvertently rewrite their favorite movie. They’re so blind to it that they can’t see it. But we all do.

51. Killers and Diplomats by John Tyler McClain and 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.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This script was just a big fat bummer. It never felt like a story that needed to be told. I’m not going to say, “who cares” about these women. But what’s the point of telling this story in 2022?

50. Indigo by 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.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: A James Bond wannabe with an art thief as its protagonist. Not the worst idea but this was a 747 plane that never got off the ground due to its faulty premise logic about stealing paintings from one museum and giving them to another. It’s like that script you write when you’re 22 and know nothing about how the real world works. You make up your own world rules which is fun as heck until you start sending the script around and people look at you cross-eyed. Although I guess this did get 11 votes.

49. Cauliflower by 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.
Votes: 32
Original Rank: 1
Thoughts: The only thing I remember about this script was how messy it was. Just a year earlier, there was a great script on the Black List called Magazine Dreams that covered a lot of the same territory. And Magazine Dreams was smart, specific, sophisticated, and had a strong voice. It showed how these scripts *should* be written. We didn’t get anything close to that with Cauliflower, which felt like the low-rent version of Magazine Dreams.

48. Cruel Summer by Leigh Cesiro and Erica Matlin
Logline: During the summer of 1998, five camp counselors accidentally kill a stranger in the woods.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: A way too thin script with way too few laughs.

47. Carriage Hill by Emi Mochizuki and 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.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: I love movies where people move into mysterious new communities and weird things start happening so I was kinda into this. But eventually things just stopped being believable.

46. Rabbit Season by 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.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: I barely remember this one. But from what I do remember, it felt unrealistic that the main character was stuck in the park the whole movie. If you’re going to set up a movie dependent on its rules, those rules need to be rock solid. These were not.

45. The Devil Herself by 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.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: Annnnnnd…. ACTION! And more action. And more action. And more action. The Devil Herself never slows down. And, ultimately, we can’t keep up with it.

44. Wheels Come Off by 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.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: If this logline were a piece of jewelry, it would be one of the shinier ones on this list. Zany “out-there” concepts are fun to write. They really are. But I often feel they’re more fun for the writer than the reader. And that’s probably how I’d categorize this one. Kudos for giving us something different. But it’s ultimately too weird.

43. Sandpiper by 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
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: As I helped develop a time loop script once, I can confirm they are some of the hardest concepts to pull off. There’s a lot of rule-setting that needs to happen and this script didn’t do its homework. I just remember this being big and cumbersome and confusing. It didn’t work for me.

42. Killer Instinct by 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.
Votes: 23
Original Rank: 4
Thoughts: It’s never a good sign when I have to go back to the review to remember what happened. But after skimming the review, I immediately remembered my big problem with this script, which was that the writer wasn’t following the right protagonist. That is Screenwriting 101 so that failure meant this script didn’t do well with me.

41. The Masked Singer by Mike Jones and 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
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: What I remember most about this script is that I thought it was going to be funnier. This happens a lot with comedy. You’ve got these really funny loglines. Which means you gotta deliver the funny in the actual script! This was still not bad, though.

40. Go Dark by Josh Marentette and Spencer Marentette (newsletter review – e-mail carsonreeves1@gmail.com to join!)
Logline: A team of black-ops soldiers use an experimental technology to travel into the afterlife and rescue their dead teammate.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: Oh how I was looking forward to this one. I saved it. Savoring that I had it in my back pocket for a tough day. This is a movie premise and then some! But this felt like a first draft. It was like Inception with all its cool imagery. But that imagery hadn’t been carefully woven together yet. In my estimation it’s at least 10 drafts from nailing its execution.  Not a quick fix by any means.

39. Four Assassins (And a Funeral) by 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.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: One of the better titles on the list leads to a fairly decent script. I always admire writers who can tell you exactly what their move is in the title, and this does that.

38. Michael Bay: The Explosive Biopic by 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.
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: In retrospect, this script had a tough task. It’s doing a biopic as a comedy. The comedy was definitely the focus, though, and it wasn’t up to par. There were some LOL moments. But, when it comes to successful comedy scripts, the reader should be laughing out loud 30-40 times. I laughed out loud maybe five times here? Needs more laughs!

37. Worst. Dinner. Ever. By Jack Waz
Logline: An estranged father and son have to survive terrorists, explosions, and, most terrifying of all, dinner with each other.
Votes: 16
Original Rank: 10 (Tie)
Thoughts: If we were ranking these scripts on which are most likely to become movies, Worst Dinner Ever would probably be in the top 3. It’s a really fun premise. I just felt that the execution was predictable and the comedy wasn’t very funny. I still think this will get made. It’s a good enough premise that you hire a name screenwriter to rewrite it.

36. Idol by Tricia Lee
Logline: The true story of American Idol viral sensation, William Hung.
Vote: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: In retrospect, I was probably too harsh on this script. I detest biopics so much that just seeing that genre denomination can cloud my judgement. At least the writer came up with an unexpected subject in William Hung. And she does treat him like a real person and not like a joke. If I had to do it over again, I probably would’ve given this one a little more love.

35. See How They Run by 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.
Votes: 30
Original Rank: 2
Thoughts: I barely remember this script. It’s got a pretty good concept, which I suspect is why it made the list. And with horror, as we just saw with “Smile,” you don’t need a whole lot to win over an audience. But I still felt like the writer didn’t do anything special with the premise. I was hoping for more.

34. Mimi by 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.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: A bit try-hard with the illustration component rearing its head into the story. It’s something I’ve seen before. And the best part of the premise, the “dating for friends” stuff, wasn’t as good as it could’ve been. Rallies late but doesn’t ultimately live up to its promise.

33. Divorce Party by 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.
Votes: 25
Original Rank: 3
Thoughts: What I’ll say about this script is that when I read the logline, I remembered the story. What you have to keep in mind with readers is that most scripts are forgettable. You literally forget 99% of what happened within 72 hours. Because there just wasn’t anything in them that stood out. So this script had to have had something about it if I remembered the whole thing. I suppose its success will depend on how they cast it. But it definitely has “the female version of The Hangover” vibes.

32. Bella by 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.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This script feels current, sort of like a cousin episode to Euphoria. Like, “What if we followed Maddy into her own movie?” If you liked Black Swan, you’ll love this.

31. Hard to Get by 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.
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: I always smile when I read this logline so that’s a good sign. And I could see this script fetching an A-list actress, which may make it look more desirable. But I just thought the same thing that I think for a lot of scripts I read, which is that the writer didn’t go to enough lengths to give us a fresh experience. I felt like I’d been here before.

30. Chicago For One by 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
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: This is a cute idea. It’s a cute screenplay. But this reminds me of the movie “Tag.” They had a viral story that didn’t quite work as a movie but they made it a movie anyway. That feels like what they’re doing here. It’s an okay script but don’t go looking for anything more than that.

29. Max and Tony’s Epic One Night Stand by 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.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: I commend the writer for coming up with a non-obvious LBGTQ story. I would watch this movie a million times over before I watched Bros.

28. Dennis Rodman’s 48 Hours In Vegas
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.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This was a big spec sale! Of the comedies on the list, it’s probably one of the better ones. If you’re unaware of Dennis Rodman, it’s a pretty sweet ride. Cause he basically did a lot of this stuff for real. Okay, maybe he didn’t drive a Ferrari off a cliff and jump out in a parachute.

27. Ultra by Colin Bannon
Logline: When an ultramarathoner earns he is one of the 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.
Votes: 19
Original Rank: 6
Thoughts: Ohhhhhh! This one started off so good! And I loved the big concept. The mythology gets dicey at the end, though. When you’re building that mythology into your script, stay away from “absolutely batsh#t insane.” It sounds good in theory but it’s just going to leave your audience scratching their heads.  This should be a good movie though.

26. The College Dropout by Thomas Aguilar and Michael Ballin
Logline: A young Kanye West’s intimate journey to create his seminal first album that reinvented hip hop music.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: A testament to the writers that I didn’t hate this script. Probably because Kanye West is one of the most complex people on the planet. He’s such an oddball and he’s got mental issues and he’s a musical genius. I do think it’s kinda cheap to write a biopic about him because anyone can do that and get on the Black List. But this was pretty good.

25. Jellyfish Days by Matthew Kic and 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.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: One of the more frustrating scripts on the list. It has some good moments, including a surprising twist around the page 30 mark. But its a heavy script that doesn’t give you enough to justify all the work you have to do ploughing through those heavy parts. If they could get another screenwriter on this to clean it up, it could be good. Right now it’s teetering between okay and good.

24. Barron’s Cove by 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.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: I remember this script for having one great jarring chase scene. Also, for successfully tackling a difficult setup. It’s good enough to check out.

23. The Fire Outside by 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.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: It should be noted that I remember the details of this script intimately. Which is strange because I didn’t exactly like it. But if I’m remembering details this many months after reading a script, there must be something to it. Sure, we guess the twist fairly early on. But the way that twist is executed still contains enough uncertainty to keep us hooked.

22. *Weird by 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.
Votes: 14
Original Rank: 15
Thoughts: This one caught me by surprise. I thought it was quite good and did a good job of taking us into the mind of someone with autism. I’ve read a lot of younger characters with autism. I’d never experienced an autistic protagonist in college though.

21. Homecoming by Murder Ink
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.
Votes: 15
Original Rank: 12 (Tie)
Thoughts: The big thing I remember about this script was that it was super-fun. When you’ve got a simple premise, like coming back to your school for Homecoming Weekend, you need to be able to create good characters and write strong dialogue because the plot isn’t doing anything for you. So it’s up to the characters and the dialogue to do that work. Which this did.

20. Mr. Benihana by Chris Wu (newsletter review – e-mail carsonreeves1@gmail.com to get on!)
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
Votes: 16
Original Rank: 10 (Tie)
Thoughts: Look, I may not like biopics. And you may not like the fact that I constantly remind you that I don’t like biopics. But if your biopic is written well, I will respect it. And this was written well. It wasn’t mind-blowing but it has a unique character and I found it to be entertaining.

19. The Villain by 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.
Votes 21
Original Rank: 5
Thoughts: Hey, have I told you I don’t like biopics? Luckily, this dude is a pretty interesting guy. I definitely think it’s braver to chronicle a villain in a biopic because it’s harder to make us care. So the writer gets points taking that challenge on. And the script does exhibit some voice. Not bad at all.

18. Apex by 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.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This script keeps changing things up at just the right times in the story, keeping you interested from start to finish. It isn’t blazing any trails. But it travels the already-traveled trails quite well.

17. The Family Plan by 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.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This is a great example of how to write a comedy spec. It’s all in the concept. If you get the concept down, it will do a lot of the work for you. Your uncle is a retired John Wick? I can imagine 10 comedic scenarios in a couple of minutes from that premise alone. So I wasn’t surprised at all, after I reviewed this, when it came together as a film, which will star Mark Wahlberg.

16. Abbi and the Eighth Wonder by 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.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: Very funny main character. Also some great supporting characters. This script takes on questions of feminism and misogyny in a lighthearted way. I feel like Black List scripts these days are designed to trigger you. This was the opposite. Which is probably why I liked it so much.

15. Follow by 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.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: This one was great. It really got the stalker-friend dynamic right. These scripts are all about building that central friendship that the reader knows is going to explode at some point. And it wasn’t a disappointment when the explosion came.

14. Blackpill by 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.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: A fun little stalker script that doesn’t quite go how you expect it to. Had the potential to be even better, though, if it went deeper into its main character’s desire for fame.

13. Hot Girl Summer by 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
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: An unexpectedly fun fish-out-of-water script. Does a good job of going right up the line but never crossing it. I described it in my review as Little Miss Sunshine meets Euphoria. I don’t know if that’s totally apt, but it does seem to exist somewhere between those two universes. And it’s funny!

12. Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel by 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.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: Easily the hardest of all the executions to pull off on this list. So Michael Shanks gets credit just for making us care the whole way through. This is the ultimate trippy low-budget production that has a big enough concept to potentially break out. There are some really clever moments in here. This one surprised me.

11. Wait List by Carly J. Hallman
Logline: A troubled millennial from small-town Texas will do anything to get into her top-choice law school, including murder.
Votes: 19
Original Rank: 7
Thoughts: This was a good script! It reminded me a lot of Promising Young Woman, which I loved. It’s not as well written but it shares a common theme of making you think this is going to be some “all women are amazing and all men are terrible” scripts, but then making its female protagonist do more and more questionable things. It engaged with the gray area when all anyone wants to do today is live in the black and white. This was a good one.

10. From Little Acorns Grow by 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.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: This is one of a handful of scripts on the list that I thought I may have been too harsh on with my review. It’s basically one of those “chess match” scripts, where two people are playing each other. And the script does a good job of exploring that. It is slow in its second act, but its big third act makes up for it.

9. False Truth by Thomas Berry, Isaac Gabaeff, and 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.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: Easily the biggest surprise of the list. If you would’ve told me ahead of time that I would’ve been riveted by a true story about “shaken baby syndrome” I would’ve told you you were bananas. But it looks like I’m the banana here cause this was actually good!

8. Yasuke by 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.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: Ava Duvernay, who used to get sent every African-American project town, once said, frustratedly, “Not every story about the first black person in a situation is worth telling.” And that went through my mind when I saw this logline. But I was happy to be proven wrong. This is not only a good story, it’s a script where the writer clearly cares about the subject matter. There’s a ton of specificity here that draws us into this world. A very strong Black List entry.

7. Symphony of Survival by 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.
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: I went back to this review recently and, after thinking about it, I probably gave it more praise than it deserved. If I remember correctly, I hadn’t read a good script in a long time so I was just happy to read anything that was good. In retrospect, the script probably needs more depth. But it’s still a really good story. When they’re stuck behind enemy lines with no way out and they’re starving… I felt it. I felt that pressure and that fear. So this is definitely worthy of being a top 10 Black List script.

6. In the End by 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.
Votes: 17
Original Rank: 9
Thoughts: I was surprised when I re-read this review and saw that I gave In The End an “impressive.” I remember liking it, but it’s hard to get an “impressive” from me these days. Maybe I was bowled over by the fact that someone finally mixed the oil and water genres (drama and sci-fi) together and it worked. Definitely one of the better scripts on the list.

5. Grizz by Connor Barry
Logline: A car accident strands a young paramedic in the rugged Pacific Northwest where she is hunted by a ravenous grizzly bear.
Votes: 15
Original Rank: 12 (Tie)
Thoughts: I love simple stories told well and this is the perfect example of that. There isn’t a ton of plot going on here. But the tension stays high throughout and we’re invested all the way til the last page.

4. Ballast by 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.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: Easily one of the coolest concepts on the list. While I get what some people are saying about it being too serious and cerebral and not enough fun, I thought the writer did an ace job with the execution. Yeah, it does’t play like a Die Hard movie but that’s what I liked about it. One of the few scripts on this list that I was looking forward to and, which, also delivered!

3. Challengers by 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.
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: As a tennis guy, it took me a while to be able to imagine Zendaya as a tennis pro. The girl doesn’t have a single muscle in her body. And she looks clumsy as all getup. Tennis is a graceful sport. But, once I got past that, I really liked this. So much so that it grew on me in the weeks since. And I’m thinking we might actually get the first great tennis movie ever (and no, King Richard is not a great tennis movie).

2. Air Jordan by Alex Convery (newsletter review)
Logline: The wild true story of how an upstart shoe company named Nike landed the most influential endorsement in sports history: Michael Jordan
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Actual Rank:
Thoughts: One of the most effortless reads on the list. Maybe any Black List.  Damon and Affleck have been trying to make their Jerry Maguire for years. They finally have it in this script. A really fun main character. I expect this to be a great movie.

1. Mercury by 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.
Votes: 18
Original Rank: 8
Thoughts: Whatever the current trend in town is, readers will always hate it. Because every time they open a script, they’re reading another script in that trend. This gives writers an opportunity, though. Whatever the trend is, write something different. That reader will be so happy to finally be reading something fresh for once. This was just a really fun smartly-written enjoyable read. It felt like a movie from the very first page. This is why I continue to love reading screenplays. Because, every once in a while, you run into a “Mercury.”

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