Or will be in the next 60 minutes

Talk about an early Christmas present!

But I feel less like the kid and more like the parent agonizingly wrapping six thousand oddly shaped gifts.  That’s because I just spent 5 obscenely frustrating hours doing some backend work on my newsletter so that I can end all the issues for those of you not receiving it. But I’m going to need your help. This newsletter will probably end up in SPAM or PROMOTIONS today. Make sure to drag that e-mail into your primary Inbox and, if your e-mail service asks you if you want all future Scriptshadow e-mails going directly to that box from now on, say “Yes.”

Onto the final newsletter of the year where I give you a roadmap for how to break into Hollywood in 2026. I make it clear for every type of writer. There’s also some Osculum Infame talk about dealing with financiers. A look back at one of the most exciting spec sales in Hollywood history. There’s a Blood & Ink update. Another Derek Kolstad project sale. And there’s a script review from the writer of one of my favorite scripts ever.

So check it out! And if you’re not on the list, e-mail me with the subject line: LIST! And I’ll send you the newsletter.

Enjoy!

I’m still on my Staycation, so I don’t know if I’ll get to my annual breakdown of each and every Black List logline. But I wanted to get this up here so that everybody could have a chance to discuss it. Here is the list!

BEST SELLER by Matisse Haddad
In New York’s literary scene, a struggling writer, pressured by her famous novelist husband to have a baby, pens a tell-all article that goes viral. This sparks a dangerous battle of seduction, manipulation, and betrayal in the public and private spheres.
AGENT: Independent Artist Group (Nick Beldoch, Jessica Zou)
MANAGEMENT: Bellevue Productions (John Zaozirny, Zack Zucker)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Peter Rice, Jason Reitman

EQUITY by Ward Kamel
After an ambitious pharma founder sells a portion of himself to a charismatic billionaire magnate, his world spirals into a high-stakes battle to buy back control of his company, his future, and his life.
MANAGEMENT: Range Media Partners (Alain Carles, Andrew Nallathambi)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Killer Films, Vertigo

RUSH by Read Masino, Cassidy Alla
When a college student is sexually assaulted by a frat guy who faces no consequences, she and her best friend rush his fraternity undercover to get revenge – only to become the unlikely stars of Delta Iota Kappa’s pledge class and get in way too deep.
AGENT: United Talent Agency (Anna Flickinger, John Kaiser)
MANAGEMENT: Masino – Artists First (Haley Jones, Casey Neumeier) / Alla – Mosaic (Drew Schenfield)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Berlanti/Schechter Films

UNTOUCHABLE by Julian Silver, Reiss Clauson-Wolf
The true exploits of Eliot Ness during his hunt for the “Torso Murderer,” a serial killer whose bloody reign terrorized 1930s Cleveland.
MANAGEMENT: Fourth Wall Management (Russell Hollander)

MINNOW by Zach Strauss, Chris Silber
When her sister goes missing, Minnow, a seemingly troubled woman, goes to extreme lengths to hunt down the mysterious man who took her. The disturbing truth goes beyond just one missing girl, and nothing—including Minnow—is as it seems.
AGENT: Strauss – Verve (Nicky Mohebbi, Isaiah Williams, Kelly Devine) / Silber – United Talent Agency (Jordan Lonner)
MANAGEMENT: Strauss – Entertainment 360 (Geoff Shaevitz, Evan Silverberg)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Thunder Road, Parallel 42

FIXATION by Siena Butterfield, Erika Vázquez
A couples therapist is drawn into a dangerous triangle of lust, lies and manipulation when she begins an affair with a stranger—who turns out to be the husband of her new client.
AGENT: Gersh (Jonathan Martin)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Josh Goldenberg)
STUDIO: New Regency
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Made Up Stories

BUILDING BOWIE by Alan Fox
In a near-future obsessed with AI generated nostalgia, a repressed droid wrangler is assigned to build a David Bowie replica — but as the droid begins evolving beyond its programming, the wrangler must confront the creative dreams she buried, and decide whether to protect her job or risk everything to reclaim her voice.
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Faisal Kanaan)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: A/Vantage Pictures

LEVERAGE by Joe Ferran
After a high-profile murder threatens a multi-billion dollar hostile takeover, an embattled Wall Street titan emerges as the prime suspect and must win a war of perception in order to protect her empire at all costs.
MANAGEMENT: Empirical Evidence (Derrick Eppich)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Empirical Evidence, Imagine

UNTITLED EROTIC TEEN FAN FICTION MOVIE by Morgan Lehmann
Delaney Pitts is a nerdy, teenage virgin who has a secret online life as an erotic fan fiction author. But when a publisher tasks her with writing a book about her (non-existent) high school love life, she’s forced to team up with a top expert in the field: the slutty quarterback of the football team.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Ilana Goren, Anna Jinks, Jacob Schiff)
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Harry Lengsfield)
STUDIO: A24, Ley Line
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Fruit Tree, Ley Line

ALPHA by Halil Ozsan
A mild-mannered American analyst climbs the ranks of a ruthless London investment firm, only to discover a horror more frightening than the industry itself: the insatiable monster awakening within him.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Trevor Astbury, Drew Leffler)
MANAGEMENT: Aperture Entertainment (Adam Goldworm)
STUDIO: Netflix
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Aperture Entertainment, Safehouse

WEST COAST LIVING by Sam Lifshutz
When a mysterious van settles outside a middle-class couple’s home, a simple noise complaint unleashes a relentless campaign of psychological warfare and escalating violence.
MANAGEMENT: RAIN (Barney Slobodin)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: CatchLight Studios

ET AL by Paul Levitt
When a husband and wife research team — along with their graduate students — travel to a remote, abandoned village to study the aftermath of a mysterious mass disappearance, their scientific investigation quickly unravels into one of unexpected paranoia and terror.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Jonas Brooks)
MANAGEMENT: 3 Arts Entertainment (Luke Maxwell)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Mortal Media

DO IT YOURSELF by Liv Auerbach, Daisygreen Stenhouse
Tom and Helen Hempel, hosts of a wildly popular home renovation show, are America’s favorite couple. When Tom dies in his mistress Melody’s bed, polar opposites Helen and Melody decide to move his body home to conceal the scandal. What could go wrong?
MANAGEMENT: Auerbach – Untitled Entertainment ((Delaney Morris, Morgan Singer, Jason Weinberg) / Stenhouse – Kings Peak Entertainment (Alex Platis)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: PictureStart

INCIDENTS by William Gillies
A woman searches for answers after surviving a mysterious abduction.
AGENT: United Talent Agency (Riley MacDonald, Geoff Morley)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Josh Goldenberg, Michael Wilson)
STUDIO: Fox Searchlight
PRODUCTION COMPANY: House Productions

RIDING HURT by Buck Bloomingdale
A former rodeo star, caught between his criminal past and a fragile shot at redemption, is drawn into a dangerous run of heists and betrayals while trying to find a way back to his family.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (PJ Picon)
MANAGEMENT: Range Media Partners (Michael Kagan, Andrew Nallathambi)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: range Media Partners, Teton Ridge

UNICORN by Grady Wood
When a tech mogul and his wife invite a third into their marriage for a weekend away, their sexually charged celebration devolves into a cat and mouse game of deception.
MANAGEMENT: Artists First (Corrine Aquino, Haley Jones)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Artists First

WILD PALMS by Ellis Bahl
An ambitious grifter and a seasoned reptile hunter form an unlikely partnership to exploit Florida’s exotic wildlife for profit, but their risky black-market ventures lead them into a world of danger, betrayal, and life-altering consequences.
MANAGEMENT: Empirical Evidence (Derrick Eppich)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Iconoclast, Alejandro De Leon, David M. Helman

BLACKOUT by Kevin Yang
When eco-terrorists attack Los Angeles’ power grid and orchestrate a cascading citywide blackout, a jaded former Secret Service agent and a brilliant but unassuming engineer must fight their way across the metropolis – in the dark – to restore power before the city collapses.
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Steve Yurovsky )

LETTERED MEN by Cole Maute
A group of fraternity brothers wake up after a night of partying nobody can remember, to find a dead body in the basement. It’s the fraternity president’s ex-girlfriend. Each of the brothers has equal cause, evidence stacked against them, and lack of alibi.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Seth Parker, Shannon Smith)
MANAGEMENT: Heroes & Villains (Aaron Lipsett)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Rough House

ALTER by SK Dale
In a secret military lab, a neuroscientist uses cutting-edge technology to rewire the mind of a psychopathic killer, forcing her own memories onto him in the hopes to trigger empathy. But as their minds intertwine, buried truths claw to the surface, plunging them both into a psychological battle where the boundaries of sanity begin to blur.
AGENT: Gersh (Dave Alexander, David Gersh)
MANAGEMENT: Artists First (Louis Heinberg, Peter Principato, Brian Steinberg)

EARLY ACTION by Sophie de Bruijn
Two parents who go to extreme lengths to get their son into his dream college – even if it means manufacturing a traumatic experience for him to write about in his admissions essay.
MANAGEMENT: Anonymous Content (Collin Litts)
STUDIO: Apple
PRODUCTION COMPANY: The Walsh Company

FLAMER by Greg Levine
In his final week at wilderness camp, fifteen-year-old Aiden faces bullies, shifting friendships, and an overwhelming crush in a turbulent reckoning with his identity. Based on the acclaimed graphic novel of the same name.
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Julie Oh

FROSTBITE by Michael Jones
There are 300 frozen bodies on the way to the summit of Mt. Everest. For blind climber Lucas Mills, he can still hear them. A survival horror experience on Everest.
AGENT: Paradigm (Varun Monga, Ethan Neale, Matt Snow)
MANAGEMENT: Anonymous Content (Ian McKnight)

OUT OF THE HOLLOW by Zak Rizzo
In need of funds to pay for his father’s medical care, Danny Locascio enlists his mercurial best friend Rusty in a series of jewel store robberies. However, the pair soon find themselves in the crosshairs of both the FBI and local organized crime, all while old secrets unravel and threaten to change their lives forever.
AGENT: William Morris Endeavor (Max West)
MANAGEMENT: Navigation Media Group (Matt Rosen)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Range Media Partners

THE PAROLE OFFICER by Mike McGrale
A parolee looking to stay on the straight and narrow is seduced by a mysterious woman into a drug-fueled one-night stand, violating the rules of his parole. That woman turns out to be his newly appointed parole officer, who unleashes a plan to blackmail him into committing an escalating series of crimes or else he’ll be sent back to prison for the rest of his life.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Drew Leffler, Adam Perry)
MANAGEMENT: Heroes & Villains (Aaron Lipsett)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Imagine Entertainment, HalleHolly

THE WAFFLE HOUSE INDEX by Andrew Nunnelly
The following three things are true: 1. The WAFFLE HOUSE INDEX is a metric used by FEMA to measure the severity of a natural disaster. 2. Jane works the graveyard shift at her local Waffle House. 3. There’s a storm coming.
AGENT: Buchwald (Tim Patricia)
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Tracy Kopulsky, Erick Mendoza)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Plan B

BAD MEMORIES by Julian Simpson
An infamous investigator of the unexplained phenomena and a highly skilled audio repair engineer work together to solve a very perplexing case file.
AGENT: Gersh (Dave Alexander, Jonathan Martin, David Rubin)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Andrew Murphy)

DON’T DO 72 by Kryzz Gautier
A night janitor is warned never to clean the 72nd floor of a corporate high-rise, but when a coworker disappears, she breaks the rule…only to discover something ancient and watching, lurking just beyond the glass.
MANAGEMENT: Navigation Media Group, Zero Gravity (Matt Rosen, David Romero)

GEEZERS by Richard Martin
After surviving a prom night massacre over 50 years ago, Alice’s golden years are interrupted by a copycat killer terrorizing her small retirement community…

LET’S BE FRIENDS by Mia Karr
An awkward 30-something woman on a quest for new friends thinks she’s hit the mother lode when she’s invited on vacation by a seemingly perfect group of lifelong besties – but she instead finds herself on the beach weekend from Hell, as the group’s co-dependent dysfunction becomes the least of their worries.
AGENT: Independent Artist Group (Grace Burford)
MANAGEMENT: Navigation Media Group (Matt Rosen)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Premeditated

LIANA by Cesar Vitale
An overly ambitious young woman’s obsession with a notorious hedge fund manager leads to her increasingly disturbing behavior in a quest to get close to, and ultimately take down, her idol.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Adam Perry, Connie Yan)
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Jennifer Au, Jennifer Levine)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Roth/Kirschenbaum

PINFALL by Sean O’Reilly
Lola, a former wrestler turned manager, finally sees her chance for a big break when she discovers a once-in-a-generation talent—only to risk not just her shot at success, but the people she cares about most, when the brutal world of professional wrestling begins to take its toll.
AGENT: Verve (Nicky Mohebbi, Sara Nestor, Rich Rogers)
MANAGEMENT: 42 (Doorie Lee, Jev Valles)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Temple Hill

REVENGE BODY by Devon Kerr
Inspired by the COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO by Alexandre Dumas. Fifteen years after a high school prank ruined his life, a now-unrecognizable personal trainer sets his sights on destroying the lives of the group of former students responsible.
MANAGEMENT: Artists First (Brooke Shoemaker, Katie Zipkin Leed)

THE MILKMAN by Lucas Kavner, Dylan Dawson
After his beloved cow is senselessly killed, a peaceful dairy farmer becomes a vengeance-obsessed one-man wrecking crew, setting out through our modern, curdled world to take on a corrupt conglomerate and the violent enforcers who protect it.
AGENT: United Talent Agency (Strawn Dixon, John Kaiser)
MANAGEMENT: Dawson – Mosaic (Patrick Newman) / Kavner – The Gotham Group (Eric Robinson)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Davis Entertainment

THE TEXAN by Kevin Arnovitz
When a self-made Houston mogul takes a young, ambitious West Texas striver under his wing, he ignites psychological warfare between mentor and protégé over fortune, family, reputation, and life-and-death.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Drew Leffler, Adam Perry)
MANAGEMENT: Heroes & Villains (Aaron Lipsett)

ALEX ALERT by Donald Diego
Alex O’Hara is struggling through a divorce when everyone in Los Angeles County starts receiving emergency alerts on their phones, revealing the details of Alex’s depressing life. Unable to stop the alerts from coming, Alex decides to lean in and try to use the newfound accountability to turn his life around.
AGENT: William Morris Endeavor (Blake Fronstin, David Meese, Max West)
MANAGEMENT: Think Tank (Tom Drumm)
STUDIO: Sony/Columbia
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Big Name, The Detective Agency, The Walsh Company

AMERICAN MIDNIGHT by Connor McIntyre
When several bodies are found along the highways of the American Midwest, a divorced state trooper and her estranged FBI husband must work together to find a trucker murdering young women for his sick wife… a vampire.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Will Watkins)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Andrew Murphy)
STUDIO: Netflix
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Vertigo

CAPABLE PEOPLE by Matthew Stewart
While hosting a fundraiser for an election with a razor thin margin, a morally conflicted congresswoman and her staff desperately try to contain a ballooning scandal that threatens to destroy her career, her marriage, and the balance of power in Washington D.C.
MANAGEMENT: Range Media Partners (Jacob Snyder)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Range Media Partners

CUT OUTS by Isaac Louis Garcia
A detective whose mind is deteriorating after a tragic misstep becomes obsessed with an unexplainable case: unrelated people keep claiming that their bodies have been stolen from them, and they’ve been left stranded as someone else.
AGENT: Independent Artist Group (Joe Fronk)
MANAGEMENT: Heroes & Villains Entertainment (Joseph Cavalier)
STUDIO: New Line Cinema
PRODUCTION COMPANY: BoulderLight Pictures

INFESTATION by Chris Freyer
A suburban family’s life spirals into horror after their young son is bitten by a strange beetle, and begins transforming into a monstrous insect. As a massive infestation simultaneously infects their family home, the father realizes he must confront the darkness lurking in his past in order to save his son.
MANAGEMENT: Zero Gravity (Cam Cubbison, Elissa Friedman)

TRACE by Jackson Kellard
A forensic sketch artist’s life is upended when her latest composite of a serial killer looks identical to her husband of 6 years.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (PJ Picon)
MANAGEMENT: RAIN (Lucius Cary)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Blinding Edge Pictures, Range Media Partners

HOUSE OF TIME by Tommy White, Miles Hubley
When an eccentric billionaire invites five guests to an extravagant weekend at his secluded chateau, what starts as an elaborate time-travel game quickly turns deadly real. Or so we think…
AGENT: William Morris Endeavor (Olivia Burgher, Bash Naran)
MANAGEMENT: Writ Large (Michael Claassen, Noah Rosen)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Jo Henriquez, SK Global

LORDS OF THE DANCE by Greg Wayne
When a 35-year-old Chicago ditch digger gets the opportunity of a lifetime to represent his ancestral homeland at the world’s biggest music competition, he unleashes a blockbuster dance phenomenon that will make Ireland a global superpower and finally set his people free. Based on the true story of Riverdance.
MANAGEMENT: Mutiny (Ryan Casey)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Mutiny

MR. BLACKBURN by Alex Kavutskiy, Ryan Perez
A passionate inner city high school teacher discovers that he’s accidentally inspired his former students into a life of meaningless minimum wage work and insurmountable student loan debt. Together, they pick up a life of crime to pay off their debts and realize the American dream he had once promised them.
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency (Bryant Barile, Joe Mann, Jacob Schiff)
MANAGEMENT: Artists First (Haley Jones, Peter Principato, Itay Reiss)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Hyperobject

NICK OF TIME by Patrick Pittis
While defending an unscrupulous billionaire in a landmark antitrust lawsuit, a tenacious young attorney begins to question his sanity as he unravels a time-bending secret – something from the past that could threaten his future.
MANAGEMENT: Navigation Media Group (Matt Rosen)

OH YOKO! by Allison Lee
Born in war-torn Tokyo, Yoko Ono forges her path as a groundbreaking modern artist in New York, but her life changes forever when she dives into a whirlwind romance with John Lennon — and becomes known as the “witch” who broke up the Beatles.
AGENT: Gersh (Mark Hartogsohn, Lee Keele)
MANAGEMENT: Night Drive Management (Jon Hersh)

CAPRICORN by Edwin Cannistraci
A married couple spice things up by starting a sexual relationship with a mysterious young woman, and it entangles them in a web of deception and danger.
AGENT: Gersh (Danny Toth)
MANAGEMENT: Bellevue Productions (John Zaozirny)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Talking Pictures

RENEGOTIATE by Mark Townend
A troubled FBI crisis negotiator finds himself stuck in a time loop, re-living the events of a suicide bombing and struggling to stop it before time runs out.
AGENT: Paradigm (Babacar Diene, Varun Monga)
MANAGEMENT: Bellevue Productions (Jeff Portnoy)
STUDIO: Lionsgate
PRODUCTION COMPANY: CineMachine, Range

SISTER by Lauren Kilbride
Sister Molly is not a Sister anymore – not after falling in love and leaving the convent behind. But two years later, when her relationship ends, she returns to the convent to figure out who she idolizes more: God, or her ex-boyfriend.

STANDBY by Derek Steiner
On her final voyage as a flight attendant, a woman finds herself trapped on a transpacific flight with a passenger who is adamant that they’re perfect together and will do everything he can to win her over.
AGENT: Gersh (Dave Alexander, Jimmy Cheng)
MANAGEMENT: Atlas Artists (Ethan Harari)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Dog Ear

THE BLACK ECHO by Peter Haig
After a hostage rescue mission goes wrong, an elite SWAT team is forced into a vast underground tunnel system — cut off and stripped of their tactical advantage by an enemy unlike any they’ve ever encountered, who’s turned the labyrinth into their killing field.
MANAGEMENT: Entertainment 360 (Kathleen Dow, Marc Mounier, Geoff Shaevitz)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: CineMachine, Parallel 42

THE PIRATE by Will Dunn
On the storm-tossed seas of the 18th Century, a fisherman infiltrates a murderous pirate warship.
AGENT: Verve (Nicky Mohebbi, Chase Northington, Adam Weinstein)
MANAGEMENT: Think Tank (Tom Drumm)
STUDIO: Amazon MGM
PRODUCTION COMPANY: 87North, On The Roam

ALTS by Seth Worley
After years of consequence-free time travel, a man, Guy, discovers his reckless behavior has created dozens of alternate versions of himself who all want him dead.
AGENT: United Talent Agency (Jason Burns, Jordan Lonner)
MANAGEMENT: Rise (Justin Letter)

CRUSH by John Fischer
When a woman goes for a solo hike in the Everglades and falls, she wakes up with a massive snake curled around her ankles, ready to slowly kill her.
AGENT: Verve (David Boxerbaum)
STUDIO: 20th Century Studios
PRODUCTION COMPANY: 1201 Films, Temple Hill Productions

GUYS WITH NO FRIENDS by Deb Kaplan, Harry Elfont
When four friendless, middle-aged men are pushed into a ‘man date’ by their fed-up wives, they stumble into a night of misadventures that leaves them bruised, bonded, and forever changed.
AGENT: Verve (Bryan Besser, Nicky Mohebbi)
MANAGEMENT: Entertainment 360 ( Jill McElroy, Geoff Shaevitz)
STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Safehouse Pictures

HEARTLAND EXPRESS by Trevor James
In rural Wyoming, a stressed-out single mom on the brink of an empty nest gets dragged into disastrous dates, honky-tonk nights, family blowups, and a new, possibly-fated romance — pushing her to discover that the hardest road to navigate is the one back to herself.

LAST STOP IN THE DESERT by Noah Sellman
A disgraced journalist visits a hippie commune to rekindle an old flame, but when a body turns up in the middle of his first acid trip, he takes it upon himself to investigate — even as the trip turns his search for truth into a kaleidoscope of clues, visions, and lies.

OBJECT PERMANENCE by Alessandra DiMona
Peter Donnely has it all: best selling novel, an impeccable home, tenured professor. More importantly, he and his wife, Jamie, are madly in love. When Jamie inconveniently disappears, his perfect life and devotion to his wife are put to the test as society and everyone around him rush to convict him of murder.
MANAGEMENT: Range Media Partners (Tanya Cohen, Jeff Barry)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Mariela Villa (Level Up)

PEACHES by Sarah Rothschild
Molly, a loveable mess, newly divorced, and drinking way too much, after one particularly reckless night, finds the unlikely lifeline she needs in Peaches, an enormous St. Bernard rescue dog.
AGENT: Verve (Parker Davis, Pamela Goldstein)
MANAGEMENT: Entertainment 360 (Susie Fox, Marc Mounier)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Temple Hill

SERPENT GIRL by Matthew Carnahan
When he wakes up naked by the highway, Bailey Quinn is only sure of a few things: He’s in a world of testicle pain, he’s tripping out of his head on peyote, and someone seems to have made a half-assed attempt at slashing his throat. He can’t for the life of him remember what happened—and then it all comes flooding back—the circus, the heist, the betrayal. And even though Bailey starts on a bloody bender for retribution, he winds up finding love and an unexpected state of grace.
AGENT: Verve (Adam Levine, Noah Liebmiller, Chris Noriega)
MANAGEMENT: Echo Lake (Dave Brown)

THE LIGHT FROM THE ARCADE by Derek Pastuszek
On a nostalgic hometown visit, a disillusioned dude is sucked into his favorite childhood arcade game, where he must team up with his teenage self to fight a horde of mind-bending monsters and find a way home…together, they’re forced to confront their past to save their future.
MANAGEMENT: Range Media Partners (Alain Carles, Andrew Nallathambi)

THE STAG AND THE BULL by Kelly Walker
Desperate to revive their marriage, a suburban couple invites a stranger into their bedroom only to discover that some fantasies can really kill the mood.
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Sean Perrone, Bill Zotti)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Barnstorm, Megamix, Mazo Partners

AMPHORA by Greg Jardin
A dramatic thriller that takes place over two parts of a man’s life.
MANAGEMENT: 3 Arts Entertainment (Harley Copen)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Jason Baum, Temple Hill

DEAD MAN’S ISLAND by Jordan Santacana
A pirate is marooned on a mysterious island, only to discover that he’s being stalked by a bloodthirsty creature.
MANAGEMENT: Alex Elliott
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Elliott Pictures

ENTERTAINING by Hannah Hafey, Kaitlin Smith
Cooking show superstar Celeste Bell and her upstart rival Josie Baker vie food media’s most coveted broadcast – Thanksgiving – over the course of a decade.
AGENT: Gersh (Eric Garfinkel)
MANAGEMENT: The Arlook Group (Jack Greenbaum)

HANDY MAN by Teddy Schenck
When a frustrated stay-at-home father in Brooklyn feels increasingly threatened by the charismatic handyman hired by his wife, their simmering rivalry escalates into a volatile battle of wills that threatens to unravel their families.
MANAGEMENT: Hopscotch Pictures (Sukee Chew)

KAMPF by Sang Kyu Kim
An actor from a hit medical show disappears for years before suddenly reappearing in history channel reenactments playing one role repeatedly: Joseph Goebbels. His reasons for such an odd professional choice remain unknown until he meets a young girl dying of cancer… through Make a Wish.
AGENT: Paradigm (Jonny Gutman, Devon Schiff, Bill Weinstein)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Mike Fera, Aaron Kaplan)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: 10 by Ten Entertainment

PLACE TO BE by Aimee Pham, Kai Sampadian
James, a good dad who flies a bit too close to the sun, hasn’t seen his kids in 10 years… but not by choice. When he decides to make his grand return at his daughter’s destination wedding weekend but no one recognizes who he actually is, James must fight to win his family’s trust so he can walk his daughter down the aisle.
AGENT: CAA (Eddie Lau)
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment (Brennan O’Donnell)

SUGAR FREE by Kirill Baru
When their sugar daddy and sugar mommy dump them to be together, a self-absorbed gold digger and a loveable slacker join forces to break up their exes and get back on easy street.
MANAGEMENT: Bellevue Productions (Jeff Portnoy, Kate Sharp)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Olive Bridge Entertainment

SUNLIGHT by Kit Steinkellner
A husband and wife’s marriage is tested when the husband is bitten by a bat and becomes a vampire.
AGENT: United Talent Agency (Marissa Devins, Dan Erlij, Abby Glusker, Amanda Hymson, Julien Thuan)
MANAGEMENT: Circle of Confusion (Josh Adler)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Mood Bath Pictures

THE SURVIVAL LIST by Tom Melia
Against her wishes, highbrow reality TV producer Annie is assigned to a new show hosted by macho survival expert Chopper Lane. However, when a shipwreck strands the two of them on a deserted island, Annie discovers Chopper is a fraud and knows nothing about survival, leaving her in charge of keeping them alive. Forced to work together, the two soon discover an unlikely chemistry.
AGENT: WME (Connor Armstrong, Max West)
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone (Alex Lerner, Ben Neumann)
STUDIO: Lionsgate
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Marc Platt Productions, Nlake Lively

THE VALLEY OF HINNOM by Jacob Marx Rice
When a rudderless teenager in an extremist group goes undercover at a synagogue he’s plotting to bomb, he finds himself relying on the very people he is supposed to destroy.
MANAGEMENT: Night Drive Management (Jon Hersh)

VIENNA by Lindsay Michel
An interpreter at the US Embassy in Vienna must act quickly when she’s pulled into a late-night meeting between the American and Russian presidents and discovers that they are negotiating the outcome of a pre-planned nuclear war.
AGENT: WME (Connor Armstrong)
MANAGEMENT: Bellevue Productions (Kate Sharp)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Persons Attempting

WITH THE 8TH PICK by Alex Sohn, Gavin Johannsen
In the 1996 NBA draft, New Jersey Nets GM John Nash fights against his own organization and wants take an untested high schooler named Kobe Bryant
AGENT: Verve (David Boxerbaum, Adam Levine, Valarie Philips)
MANAGEMENT: Lit Entertainment (Kendrick Tan)
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Star Thrower

Good news.

The final newsletter of the year will be landing in your inbox in the next couple of days, so keep an eye out. There will be a Blood and Ink update, some Osculum talk, and a script review from a writer who created one of my favorite scripts of all time. It’s going to be juicier than a Jack In The Box breakfast burrito.

As for today, I want to swan dive into a pool of industry chatter because it feels like I’m the only person in town who isn’t bothered by Netflix kicking Warner Brothers into its ocean of content.

This has been on the horizon for a long time, people. I wrote an article ten years ago about the streaming wars that were coming. The key word was WARS. That meant casualties. It was never going to stop with streaming platforms. Studios were always going to get pulled onto the battlefield. This latest power grab was telegraphed the second Amazon bought MGM.

The question I asked myself when everyone else started losing their minds was simple: Does this really matter? So let’s break it down.

The biggest concern I keep hearing is that this is the death of theatrical. The theory is that Netflix will dump every new Warner Brothers movie directly onto their service. Goodbye theaters. Goodbye popcorn. Goodbye happiness.

Here is the truth. That is never going to happen with anything IP driven. There is too much money to be made. But even if it did happen one day, is it truly the apocalypse everyone is making it out to be? Is it so dreadful to imagine yourself watching Matrix 7 on your seventy inch television in the comfort of your living room?

I used to be Christopher Nolan levels of “all-in” on theatrical. I believed the cinema was a sacred temple. Then two things rewired my brain. The first was an interview James Cameron gave a couple of years after Titanic came out. The film was about to premiere on network television for the first time and I was shocked to hear that Cameron was deeply involved in the television edit. As far as I was concerned he had already climbed Everest. He had made the hardest film ever shot. Why did he care so much about a broadcast version of the movie?

Yes, television edits were more complicated back then. There were built-in commercial breaks so you had to protect moments that landed right before the cut. There was also pan and scan, which meant your widescreen frame was crushed into a square and certain parts of the image had to be sacrificed. I could understand Cameron not wanting to leave those choices up to a thirty dollar an hour editor.

But it was Cameron’s answer to a simple question that completely changed the way I thought about theatrical. Someone asked him why he cared so much about this television edit. His answer stunned me. He said more people were going to watch his movie on television, in one night, than had ever watched it in theaters.

Paradigm shifted. Every week during Titanic’s run I was reading headlines about how it was the biggest film of all time. I assumed that if billions of dollars were being made then surely an un-toppable populace of people had seen the movie. Apparently that total could be topped easily.
Once I learned that, any preciousness I had about movies needing to be in the theater faded away.  If you couldn’t control the fact that most people were going to wait for your movie to hit television before they saw it, then why sweat it?  Why sweat where the person enjoyed your film?

Several years later, I had a second epiphany that sealed the deal. I went to see one of the Transformers movies in the theater. There is no film franchise more engineered for the theatrical experience. It is spectacle. It is sound. It is the full weight of two hundred and fifty million dollars exploding in front of you.

And I was bored out of my mind.

That was it for me. A bad film is going to bore you in a theater and it is going to bore you on your couch. A great film is going to move you in a theater and it is going to move you in your house. So, again, who cares where you watch it?

Now, are there going to be movies that would be genuinely better to watch on the big screen? Sure. There will be a few every year. And guess what? THEY’RE STILL GOING TO BE ON THE BIG SCREEN. That’s not going to change. I PROMISE YOU Netflix will give Christopher Nolan’s movie a proper theatrical release. Granted, him threatening to kill Ted Sarandos’s entire family if they don’t will have an influence. But superhero movies, Star Wars movies, Harry Potter movies – they’re all going to get theatrical releases. Theatrical will never die. It will just exist for the movies that make a lot of money for the studio. And that’s pretty much how it already is.

The more interesting conversation regarding Netflix buying Warner Brothers is whether Netflix meddles with the creative structure at Warner Brothers. That’s the real danger.

Netflix is notoriously bad at generating IP. Their strategy has always been to empower the filmmaker regardless of talent then stay out of the way. It sounds romantic. But all the great movies you remember were forged through the gauntlet of development. People pushed back. People challenged choices. Ideas were sharpened under pressure until the edges were clean.

Netflix loves being hands off with projects like The Old Guard, which is precisely the sort of movie that needs every possible voice in the room to push back. They do the same thing with legendary directors except in those cases the directors swindle Netflix into financing the one project they’ve been carrying around for twenty years that no studio will make it because it is both boring and uncommercial. Here’s looking at you David Fincher’s Mank and Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma.

The only valuable IP Netflix has ever created is Stranger Things. And that’s not even a movie property.

Warner Brothers, on the other hand, has spent decades building a system that develops scripts into actual stories that resonate with audiences. They know what they are doing. Netflix needs that. Netflix has leaned so heavily on its algorithm that it has lost touch with anything that connects on a human level. Everyone who has ever studied screenwriting knows that the secret sauce to making movies work is the human condition. You need a character who feels like someone you know. Someone who connects with you beyond the runtime. The algorithm cannot measure that.

So Netflix, if you’re listening? Stay far away from the creative structure at WB.

Of course, here’s the funniest part of all this.

It will probably never happen.

We are looking at two or three years of court battles and anti trust challenges. But even if it does go through, I promise you it will not affect your moviegoing life anywhere near as much as you think it will.

Don’t worry folks. Be happy. :)

Today I will share the single most important screenwriting tip you will ever learn

A little update.

Technically, I’m supposed to be on vacation for two weeks but that vacation fell apart for a couple of frustrating reasons. The problem is, my mind hasn’t accepted this yet and, therefore, I’m in denial. My brain is in vacation mode.

However, I have been doing consultations. And an issue keeps popping up in these consultations that I need to share with you guys so you don’t make the same mistake.

But before we go there, we’ve got to talk about Troll 2 (on Netflix). Because Troll 2 makes this same mistake in its very first scene. Which means that the lack of understanding in this key area of screenwriting is ubiquitous. It’s even happening in Norway!

I loved the first Troll and I just wanted to have a good time with the sequel. I wasn’t expecting anything groundbreaking. Just entertain me.

And Troll 2 tries to do that. It lives inside that 1997-1999 Hollywood box office era where you had these big ideas with lavish production with things just getting destroyed! Does it give the film a dated feel? Sure. But I was open to time-traveling back to that era, as long as I enjoyed myself.

The story follows this scientist lady, Nora, who is sort of like Ripley in Aliens in that she’s had experience with trolls before. So the Norway government hires her because they’re having trouble understanding this (currently solidified) troll that they captured. They need her insight.

What they were not expecting was that Nora, in her first opportunity at being alone with the troll, would sing it a troll lullaby favorite, which then WAKES UP THE TROLL. The troll then struggles free and bursts out of the secret underground hideout, where it goes racing across the land and wreaking havoc.

Nora and a team consisting of soldiers and scientists hop in a helicopter and begin chasing this thing around. But I guess the troll’s presence signals some other hibernating troll that it’s time to wake up, because another troll, this one angrier than the first, emerges and makes it his mission to beat up Troll 1! So now the humans are chasing two trolls!

This culminates in the two trolls fighting each other in a Mano a Mano battle in the city canal. And only one troll is going to make it out alive. Once that happens, the humans are going to have to decide whether they need to eliminate that survivor or coexist with him. The end.

Okay, so what’s this magical piece of advice that very few screenwriters are aware of? Pay close attention because this might be the single most important screenwriting tip you ever learn.

Here it is…

When writers sit down to write a scene, 90% of them look at that scene THE WRONG WAY. What they do is they say to themselves some combination of the following…

“I need to set up this character here.”
“I need to set up this plot point.”
“I need to make sure that the reader understands this key piece of information.”
“I have to hint to the audience that this character could be the killer.”
“I need to establish the chemistry between these two characters.”
“I need to hint at this backstory.”
“I have to remind the reader of that story thread I haven’t mentioned in a while.”

The writer has this list of things he wants to do in the scene he needs to write… and then he writes it. And he makes sure that he gets all of those things in. Once he does this, he then spends every subsequent rewrite of that scene trying to make it a little more entertaining. He tries to make it the best it can possibly be.

And because he approaches things in this way, his scenes are never good.

You want to approach your scenes IN THE EXACT OPPOSITE MANNER.

The first thing you should do before thinking of ANYTHING ELSE about your scene is ask: “How can I write the most entertaining scene possible?” That’s it. Figure THAT OUT first AND THEN once you’ve come up with a scene design that leads to an entertaining scene THEN you can inject your laundry list of needs into the scene. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

This will ensure that you always have an entertaining scene. Period.

The opening scene of Troll 2 is the perfect example of a writer doing this the wrong way. The scene, for some stupid reason, is set 30 years before the main timeline and takes place in a small Norway home with a father reading his daughter a book about trolls.

And you can feel the writer approaching this scene with Method 1 (the incorrect way). “I need to set up that trolls have always been a part of this woman’s life.” “I need to set up that the mom has cancer.” “I need to set up that she has lived in this house her whole life.”

The words “I need to set up…” are the devil in screenwriting. They are legit evil.

UNLESS!

Unless they come after you orchestrating an entertaining scene idea! Then it’s okay. But here, it’s this boring scene we’ve seen a million times in a million movies that doesn’t have any dramatically compelling moments. It is literally allll setup, and therefore boring as shit.

So, how would you create an entertaining scene here, Carson? I don’t know! Get creative. What kind of scene would entertain *you*?

It doesn’t need to be World War 3 levels of entertainment. The level of entertainment you can offer is always relative to the situation. We’re in a small home in the middle of nowhere. What can we do with that?

Maybe someone knocks on the door, late, when nobody should be around for miles. That sounds like it could lead to an interesting scene. And in just two seconds I’ve already come up with a more entertaining idea for a scene than this bore-fest of a father reading his daughter a book before she goes to bed.

Again, if you go into every single scene starting with this question: “What situation can I create to come up with the most entertaining scene possible?” your scripts are going to be MILES AHEAD of 99% of screenwriters. Seriously! Because even professionals don’t know this advice. They set up all this stuff in a scene then retroactively come up with just enough entertainment surrounding it to get by.

Congratulations, you are now a very good screenwriter. Just by reading this article.

Certainly, armed with his knowledge, you could’ve written a better version of Troll 2.

How was the rest of the movie?

It was pretty bad.

Honestly? The script made no sense. Who was this other troll? Why was he around? It was clearly just to create another troll for the first one to fight with.

But you know what? I already knew it wasn’t going to work. How? Because of that first scene. If you prove to me in your first scene that you don’t know how to prioritize entertaining the viewer, then I know you won’t be able to properly entertain me later.

Which is too bad because Troll 1 rocked!

Maybe I’ll go watch that again.

Genre: Drama
Premise: Recently dumped Ezra Green accidentally brings a terminally ill woman home to Bridgehampton for a long weekend with his eccentric family. Don’t judge–he needs to cope with his estranged father who just got out of white-collar prison.
About: This script finished with 10 votes on last year’s Black List.
Writer: Jeremy Leder
Details: 105 pages

Logan Lerman for Ezra?

How’s my new Black List script-picking strategy going?  For those who didn’t read last week’s review, I have a new strategy for taking on the highly uncertain quality of Black List scripts. I read the first page of two scripts and go with whichever one has the better writing.

Today’s two scripts are A Band of Wolves, about a rival tribe’s raid and a woman who must befriend a wolf to survive the aftermath, and this script, Bridgehampton.

I was hoping that Wolves would win, cause it sounded more like a movie than Bridgehampton, but then I read Wolves’ first page

One of the clearest indicators of a weak script is a cold open presented as a major event, despite being entirely ordinary. It’s made worse when the writer slaps on the movie title immediately after, as though emphasizing the significance the scene failed to earn.

When I see the above in a script, the script will be bad 99.9% of the time. That made choosing between the two easy. But now it’s up to Bridgehampton to prove I made the right choice.

30-something Manhattanite, Ezra, just got dumped by his girlfriend and is in relationship mourning. His sister, Stella, is dealing with the fact that she’s fallen out of love with her husband, Brooks, who’s so much of a dummy, maybe she never loved him in the first place.

The two are heading back to their mother’s giant mansion for the weekend because their father is getting out of prison after engaging in some Bernie Madoff scam that lost thousands of people their life savings.

A day before heading there, Ezra meets a pretty girl named Harper at the coffee shop and she tells him straight up she wants to have sex as soon as possible. So they go back to his place and have sex. Afterwards, he asks her to be his date for the weekend. She reluctantly says yes.  Not long after, he learns about her secret, which is that she’s dying.

Once everybody gets to the mansion, it’s really about the unhealed breach of trust between Ezra and his father. We find out that Ezra worked for his dad and that the dad had secretly used Ezra’s name to put together a lot of shady deals, which nearly got him sent to prison as well.

Since that happened, Ezra has been steadfast in that he’ll never talk to his father again. It takes Harper, who has more perspective, since she’s at the end of her life, to convince him that holding grudges is stupid. (spoiler) But before Ezra can have the big conversation, someone attacks his dad. And now the family must spend the end of their weekend praying that daddy makes it through.

Noooooooo…

My perfect undefeated streak for how to pick good Black List scripts has ended.

The streak ends at 1.

:(

Bridgehampton, unfortunately, fell victim to the old “crazy family” series of tropes that focuses on a family so wacky ya just can’t get enuf of’em! Except, you can. And by page 30, you do.

These types of scripts are a trap. You need to be one of those Level 6000 “super-amazing-voice” screenwriters to pull them off. You need to have that “once in a generation” thing going for you.

The story’s structure works like this: you introduce a family loaded with unresolved issues, place them inside an artificially compressed timeframe, then give them no real goals. Instead, we’re simply waiting for their broken relationships to sort themselves out.

When you use this kind of structure, all the pressure shifts to the dialogue and moment-to-moment scene writing. There’s no suspense, no mystery, no plot movement. The script ends up building set pieces out of the family walk, the trip to the store, the night out.  Ordinary activities that aren’t inherently dramatic.

These scenes can only entertain if the writer’s talent elevates them, because there’s not enough natural dramatic tension to make them compelling on their own.

In case you were wondering, here’s the first page of Bridgehampton…

Ironically, I liked that we jumped into the plot right away.  Someone’s getting dumped.  And then in the next scene, we’ve got conflict between a couple. There’s actually a ton happening in this one page, which is why I chose it.

As for the selling point of the screenplay, which is terminal Harper, I don’t think that aspect of the script worked. In many ways, it’s a red herring. This isn’t about Ezra and Harper at all. It’s about Ezra and his family, specifically his father. Harper just operates as a wild card, a “larger than life” element who’s supposed to give the script some edge. But she never quite fits into the story in an organic way.

This issue was telegraphed early on. We meet Harper on a train giving out pre-created post-it notes to random men with her number on them.

Let’s think about that for a second. Cause if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of screenwriting, this is a topic where you can do so.

On the one hand, the act creates mystery and then, later, we see it as a setup for the eventual payoff that she’s terminal.

BUT – let’s ask the tough question here. Would someone do this in real life? Would any woman, cancer-stricken or not, fill up a stack of post-it notes with her number and hand it out to men throughout the day?

No.

Never.

Her entire character begins with an inauthentic action. And because readers put so much weight on how they first meet a character, we immediately see her for what she is: a mystical falsehood. She doesn’t feel like a real person.

Now, you might argue, “But this is the movies.  You’re allowed to create bigger, more fantastical actions than in real life.” And that’s true. You are. In Being John Malkovich, there’s a 7½th floor in the protagonist’s office building.  Do 7½th floors exist in real life?  No they do not.

But this is where writing becomes tricky. You have to understand the tone of your screenplay and make sure every creative choice stays within that tonal boundary.  Being John Malkovich literally takes us inside a man’s head, so a 7½th floor doesn’t feel out of place.  Here, we’re watching a real family spending a real weekend together.  In that world, a terminally ill girl whimsically handing out “fuck me” cards just doesn’t fit the tone.

If I were guiding this script, the first thing I would do is get rid of Harper.  She’s not necessary for the story AT ALL. In fact, if you took her out of the story, it’s exactly the same. Literally nothing changes.

I would also change the dad’s situation so he’s going to prison rather than coming back from it.  A character returning from prison in this scenario isn’t inherently interesting.  Good stories emerge from things that go wrong, not things that go right.  Him coming home is something going right.  Also, if he’s about to go to prison, the family gathering suddenly has purpose.

The kids, all of whom rely on the family money, come home for the weekend so everyone can confront what’s about to happen to the family fortune. Their lives are on the verge of a major shift.

It’s still not a premise I’d personally write, but it’s stronger than what we have now. As written, the story is basically: “Dad’s back from prison, so let’s get drunk and argue for three days.” There’s no purpose to it because there’s no actual goal. Changing the dad’s circumstance would at least give the story that clear driving goal.

As I sit here, I wonder how good that Wolves script was.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: You don’t need to be a once-in-a-generation writer to write a good thriller script, a good action script, a good horror script, a good adventure script. You need three things. You need a good concept. You need enough experience to know what you’re doing (have written at least 5 scripts). And you need to be willing to work harder than the next writer. That’s it! With scripts like this, you need to be extremely talented (top .1% of professional writers) to make them work.