Why Hollywood Can't Find Good Scripts
6/1/202622 min
How to get discovered in Hollywood has been a decades-old struggle. For screenwriters, that game started to change when Franklin Leonard launched the Black List, an annual ranking of the “most liked” but not-yet-produced screenplays. Since 2005, more than 500 of those scripts have become feature films, including several Best Picture Oscar-winners. Ryan Knutson interviewed Leonard about how to fix some of Hollywood’s other challenges at our live show in Los Angeles. Further Listening:
- Hollywood Jobs Are Disappearing
- Inside the Nasty Fight to Take Over Hollywood - The Journal.
- For Riz Ahmed, Life is a Spy Thriller Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsRyan Knutson· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hey, listeners. I've got a trivia question for you. What do the following movies have in common? [upbeat music] 500 Days of Summer, Spotlight, The Imitation Game, Argo, Juno, The King's Speech, Little Miss Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire. The answer is that before they were famous films, they were screenplays that made the Black List. The Black List is an annual compilation of the most liked, but not yet produced screenplays in Hollywood. Since 2005, more than 500 Black List scripts have been made into feature films, grossing over $30 billion in box office sales worldwide. Black List movies have won 60 Academy Awards, including four Best Picture Oscars. And today's episode is a conversation with the founder of the Black List, Franklin Leonard. It was filmed at our live show in Los Angeles. You can watch our conversation on Spotify. [upbeat music] Live from the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles, welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.
Speaker 11:18
Hi.
Ryan Knutson· Host1:19
I'm Ryan Knutson. [audience cheering] Coming up on the show, Franklin Leonard on the Black List,