The Black List comes out today!

And in anticipation, here’s an LAT article on its importance:

One day a year, Franklin Leonard transforms from midlevel studio executive mired in development meetings, script readings and note-taking into Hollywood’s most important soothsayer.

The 32-year-old native of Columbus, Ohio, is the mastermind and compiler of the Black List, a compendium of the year’s best unproduced screenplays. Today marks Leonard’s sixth annual metamorphosis, and when he presses “send” on his e-mail — shooting the list around Hollywood and beyond — he may again change the fates of scores of screenwriters looking to crack the big leagues.

“The Black List opened doors and turned my life around,” says writer Michael R. Perry, 47, whose trippy script “The Voices,” about a man tormented by his talking pets, landed in third place on 2009’s list. “My writing career has totally taken off.”

The production company Vertigo Entertainment is still in development with “The Voices,” trying to land a high-profile actor-director team to champion it. But meanwhile, Perry, a former television writer-producer on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” penned this year’s film “Paranormal Activity 2,” has signed on for the third installment of the horror series, and is now working on a TV pilot with “Paranormal Activity” director Oren Peli for ABC.

Unlike in the early years, when most if not all of the scripts on the list were undiscovered gems, many of those on the 2010 Black List are spoken for: Of the 10 highest-ranked scripts, six have been purchased by studios. And with Hollywood bigwigs paying more attention, some people have tried to manipulate the system.

Check back later today for the list.