Analysis: 2016 Black List
A deep dive into the scripts named to this year’s annual Black List.
A deep dive into the scripts named to this year’s annual Black List.
The 2016 Black List rolled out last week — you can find titles, writers and loglines for all of the selected scripts here — and as promised, today we have some statistics and analysis for you.
First some interesting stats about this year’s Black List:
- There are 73 screenplays on the 2016 Black List (There were 81 screenplays on the 2015 Black List)
- Just under 250 working film executives at major Hollywood financiers and production companies contributed to the 2016 Black List
- 31.5% of the scripts on the 2016 Black List have a financier attached (45.7% on 2015 Black List)
- 71.2% of the scripts on 2016 Black List have a producer attached (74.1% on the 2015 Black List)
- 26% of 2016 Black List writers are females (19) compared to 19.8% (16) on the 2015 Black List
- 22 of 73 scripts on the 2016 Black List explicitly require female leads (30%) compared to 27% in 2015
- 12 writers (or teams) on the 2016 Black List do not have an agent (8 in 2015)
- 7 writers (or teams) on 2016 Black List do not have a manager (3 on 2015 Black List)
- 35 scripts are based on nonfiction source material or real life individuals
- 11 biopics on the 2016 Black List compared to 14 last year
- One writer has multiple scripts on the 2016 Black List: Mike Makowsky with two (I Think We’re Alone Now, Bad Education)
Drilling down into the scripts:
Once again real life stories are prominent in the 2016 Black List including biopics (Voyagers, Rosemary Kennedy, The Builder, Barbarian, Lee, Mr. Toy) and stories inspired by true events (The Olympian, Battle of Alcatraz, Escape From Sarajevo, Last Days of Night, American Rebel, Donziger).
Most popular genres (in order of popularity): Drama, Science Fiction, Comedy, Action, Fantasy, Thriller.
8 scripts feature crime (Dark Money, King of LA, Villains, Northeast Kingdom, The Fruitcake, Inner City, Burn Run, Bad Education).
4 scripts involve characters trying to survive against nature (Burt Squire, Adrift, King’s Canyon, Rugged).
3 scripts involve famous musicians (Blond Ambition, Revolver, Layla).
3 scripts have robots as a central narrative element (Mother, Truned On, Boyfriend Material).
2 scripts involve time travel (The Time Traveler’s La Ronde, Contingency Protocol).
2 scripts feature alien invasion (Man Alive, The Fall).
2 scripts have Stephen King at the center of the narrative (The Kings of Maine, Maximum King).
Here is a word cloud created from all of the 2016 Black List script loglines:
What to make of all this?
You need look no further than those two big ass words at the center of the word cloud: True. Story. As this Slate article points out:
It’s clear, though, that screenwriters love writing about making movies and executives love reading scripts about making movies. It’s also clear that they love true stories. So many true stories. So, so many true stories. This year, it seems like a surprising number of people want to tell true stories about George Harrison and Stephen King, who show up in two scripts each, but that’s only the beginning. Here are the 35 real people, famous or not, who are featured subjects of scripts on the 2016 Black List.
Tami Ashcraft
Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
Boudica
Pattie Boyd
Ben Bradlee
Hermine Braunsteiner
Charlie Chaplin
Eric Clapton
Steve Cohen
Roy Cohn
Paul Cravath
Steven Donzinger
Ann Druyan
Thomas Edison
Jeff Gillooly
Marvin Glass
Katherine Graham
Tonya Harding
George Harrison (two scripts!)
Sandy Jenkins
Rosemary Kennedy
Stephen King (two scripts!)
Joseph Lelyveld
Monica Lewinsky
Madonna
Randy Mastro
Alexander McQueen
Carl Sagan
Deborah Sampson
Hannie Schaft
David Steeves
Linda Tripp
Donald Trump
Fred Trump Jr.
George Westinghouse
I should note, as I did in a recent Broken Projector podcast, the ‘based on a true story’ angle is not a new one for the Black List. Here are the numbers of Black List biopic scripts from the last 4 years:
2013: 8
2014: 10
2015: 14
So the 11 projects on this year’s list is pretty much in alignment with previous years representing a consistent trend toward biopics and the wider field of nonfiction based scripts.
The number of scripts with a crime angle (8) stands out. That represents 11% of the total number of Black List screenplays this year. Perhaps this reflects a larcenous mood in today’s culture.
Apart from the true story dynamic, as I have posited previously — Hollywood’s New Four-Quadrant Movie Model — the studios appear to have four pillars to their current movie business model: Franchise, International, Nostalgia, Spectacle (FINS). And we can see the draw of Nostalgia in this year’s Black List scripts. Examples:
- For the second consecutive year, a music icon who sprang to fame primarily in the 80s and 90s, was the #1 Black List script: Last year Bubbles which features Michael Jackson and this year Blond Ambition which features Madonna.
- Biopics featuring cultural icons such as Carl Sagan, Stephen King, and George Harrison.
- True stories involving notable historical figures including Monica Lewinsky and Tonya Harding.
If there’s anything a writer might glean from this year’s List, it just might be that studio executives have their antenna up for true stories featuring some sort of nostalgic element which would resonate with the Millennial, Gen Y, and Gen X crowd.
More stats:
Black List 2016: Scripts By Management Company
Madhouse Entertainment — 10
Grandview — 8
Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment — 7
Bellvue Productions — 6
Echo Lake Entertainment — 5
Circle of Confusion — 4
3 Arts Entertainment — 3
Good Fear Film + Management— 3
Heroes and Villains Entertainment — 3
Management 360–3
Lee Stobby Entertainment — 3
The Gotham Group — 2
Think Tank Management— 2
Epicenter — 1
Hopscotch Pictures — 1
Kipperman Management — 1
LBI — 1
Mosaic — 1
Principato-Young Entertainment — 1
Zero Gravity Management — 1
Black List 2016: Scripts By Agency
WME — 17
CAA — 15
UTA — 15
Verve — 4
APA — 3
ICM — 3
Gersh — 2
Paradigm — 2
There you have it: Another annual Black List put to bed. For the writers who made the List this year, it’s up and at ’em time, a whole slew of meetings on Hollywood’s perpetual bottled water tour in the offing… only now these writers will be perceived as having a lot more heat than before.
Industry news coverage of the 2016 Black List:
For GITS analyses of previous Black Lists:
As always, I encourage people to read as many of these Black List scripts as possible. These 73 scripts represent, as best as we can know at this moment in time, where development execs’ heads are at and most importantly what types of stories resonate with them in a positive way.