The Black List (survey)

The Black List
Created	2004; 20 years ago (2004)
Location	blcklst.com/lists/
Author(s)	Franklin Leonard
Purpose	Ranking of top unproduced screenplays

The Black List is an annual survey of the "most-liked" motion picture screenplays not yet produced. It has been published every year since 2005 on the second Friday of December by Franklin Leonard, a development executive who subsequently worked at Universal Pictures^[1] and Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment.^[2][3][4] The website states that these are not necessarily "the best" screenplays, but rather "the most liked", since it is based on a survey of studio and production company executives.^[5]

Of the more than 1,000 screenplays The Black List has included since 2005, at least 440 have been produced as theatrical films,^[6] including Argo,^[7] American Hustle, Juno,^[1] The King's Speech, Slumdog Millionaire,^[8] Spotlight,^[9] The Revenant, The Descendants, and Hell or High Water. The produced films have together grossed over $30 billion,^[9] and been nominated for 241 Academy Awards and 205 Golden Globe Awards, winning 50^[10] and 40 respectively. As of the 92nd Academy Awards, four of the last 10 Academy Awards for Best Picture went to scripts featured on a previous Black List, as well as 12 of the last 20 screenwriting Oscars (Original and Adapted Screenplays).^[11] Additionally, writers whose scripts are listed often find that they are more readily hired for other jobs, even if their listed screenplays still have not been produced, such as Jim Rash and Nat Faxon, two of the writers of the screenplay for The Descendants, who had an earlier screenplay make the list.^[3] Slate columnist David Haglund has written that the list's reputation as a champion for "beloved but challenging" works has been overstated, since "these are screenplays that are already making the Hollywood rounds. And while, as a rule, they have not yet been produced, many of them are already in production."^[12]