Author: James Partridge

Compiled from the suggestions of over 290 film executives, the annual Black List reveals the “most liked” unproduced scripts around. Execs can nominate up to 10 of their favourite scripts, as long as they were written within the calendar year and are not yet in production. The 2012 Black List was announced this week, and we have it here for you to peruse. Our very own Taika Waititi appears on this year’s list with his screenplay JoJo Rabbit – a World War II story of a prideful and nationalistic ten-year old boy who is severely hurt by a grenade at Hitler youth camp and discovers that his mother is hiding a fifteen-year old Jewish girl in their house. Apparently it’s a comedy! The Black List was conceived in 2005 by then studio exec Franklin Leonard, in order to help him find quality scripts. Since that day more than 200 Black List screenplays have been made into feature films, earning over $16 billion in worldwide box office and receiving 25 Academy Awards and 148 nominations –  Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech and Argo to name but three. Scripts have to receive at least six votes to be included on the Black List. This year also saw two innovations introduced: 1) the launch of a membership site for industry professionals that functions as a real-time Black List and screenplay recommendation engine,...