CriterionCast

2012 Black List Reveals The Best Unproduced Screenplays

blacklistthumb blacklistframed

Most awards given this year will be for full feature films, documentaries, or their stars and directors. However, when it comes to The Black List, a very select group finally gets their due.

Each year, The Black List reveals the greatest that Hollywood has to offer in the world of yet-to-be-produced screenplays. With various projects featured here coming your way relatively soon, these are some of the hottest films in Hollywood right now, and the top script is no different.

Leading the way is Draft Day, a film that follows the GM of the Buffalo Bills pro-football team as he makes a difficult decision on draft day. With Ivan Reitman looking to direct, the project is one of the more talked about pictures coming down the pipeline, despite having Paramount recently pass on the picture.

Toss in some films about Dr. Seuss and even Watergate, and you have yet another eclectic list of screenplays this year. Most of these will attract some of the biggest and brightest names in film, so this is about as good a list as any with regards to films that you should be keeping an eye on. Hell, even Sam Peckinpah shows up. Try to not be excited for If They Move’¦Kill ‘˜Em!. Learn more about that, and the leaders of the list, below.

65
DRAFT DAY
Rajiv Joseph, Scott Rothman
On the day of the NFL Draft, Bills General Manager Sonny Weaver has the opportunity to save football in Buffalo when he trades for the number one pick. He must quickly decide what he’s willing to sacrifice in pursuit of perfection as the lines between his personal and professional life become blurred.
Agency: Gersh, CAA
Agents: Lee Keele (Joseph), Chris Till, Bill Zotti (Rothman)
Management: Kaplan/Perrone (Joseph & Rothman)
Managers: Josh Goldenberg, Aaron Kaplan
Production: Montecito Pictures

43
A COUNTRY OF STRANGERS
Sean Armstrong
Based on true events. Inspector Geoff Harper conducts a forty year search for the Beaumont Children, three siblings taken from an Australian beach in January of 1966.
Agency: Verve
Agents: Aaron Hart, Adam Levine, Rob Herting, Bill Weinstein
Management: Principato-Young Management
Managers: Peter Dealbert, Susan Solomon

43
SEUSS
Eyal Podell, Jonathan Stewart
As a young man, Ted Geisel meets his future wife Helen, who encourages his fanciful drawings, and in the 1950s when Ted is struggling professionally, Helen helps inspire the children’s book that will become his first big hit, ‘The Cat in the Hat.’
Agency: Verve
Agents: Bryan Besser, Zach Carlisle, Rob Herting
Management: Industry Entertainment
Manager: Michael Botti, Jess Rosenthal

39
RODHAM
Young Il Kim
During the height of the Watergate scandal, rising star Hillary Rodham is the youngest lawyer chosen for the House Judiciary Committee to Impeach Nixon, but she soon finds herself forced to choose between a destined path to the White House and her unresolved feelings for Bill Clinton, her former boyfriend who now teaches law in Arkansas.
Agency: UTA
Agents: Barbara Dreyfus, Jenny Maryasis
Management: The Arlook Group
Managers: Richard Arlook, Jason Hong
Production: The Arlook Group, Temple Hill Entertainment

35
STORY OF YOUR LIFE
Eric Heisserer
Based on the short story by Ted Chiang. When alien crafts land around the world, a linguistics expert is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat. As she learns to communicate with the aliens, she begins experiencing vivid flashbacks that become the key to unlocking the greater mystery about the true purpose of their visit.
Agency: UTA
Agents: Barbara Dreyfus, Jon Huddle
Management: Art/Work
Manager: Julie Bloom
Financier: Film Nation
Production: Film Nation, Lava Bear, 21 Laps Entertainment

33
WUNDERKIND
Patrick Aison
A Mossad employed father and his CIA agent son team up to hunt an escaped Nazi.
Agency: ICM
Agents: Harley Copen, Bryan Diperstein, Emil Gladstone
Management: DMG Entertainment
Managers: Chris Cowles, Chris Fenton
Financier: Paramount
Production: Bad Robot, DMG Entertainment

31
EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL, AND VILE
Michael Werwie
Based on a true (and ultimately surprising) story, a promising young law student fights an oppressive legal system and growing public scrutiny when his routine traffic stop snowballs into shocking criminal charges, imprisonment, daring escapes, and ultimately acting as his own attorney in a nationally televised murder trial.
Agency: UTA
Agents: Peter Dodd, David Flynn, Jon Huddle, David Kramer
Management: Evolution Entetainment
Manager: Stephen Gates, Brad Kaplan
Production: Michael Costigan

29
GLIMMER
Carter Blanchard
When three friends go missing on a camping trip in a forest rumored to be haunted, the two left behind discover clues that lead them to a safe deposit box containing video tapes’¦ showing exactly what happened to their friends.
Agency: Paradigm
Agents: David Boxerbaum
Management: Madhouse Entertainment
Managers: Ryan Cunningham, Adam Kolbrenner
Financier: Dreamworks
Production: Madhouse Entertainment

29
ME & EARL & THE DYING GIRL
Jesse Andrews
Based on Andrews’s eponymous novel, a quirky high school student who enjoys making films sparks a friendship with a classmate dying of leukemia.
Agency: WME
Agents: Anna Deroy, Sarah Self
Management: MXN
Managers: Michelle Knudsen, Mason Novick
Production: Indian Paintbrush

28
DEVILS AT PLAY
James Dilapo
In the Soviet Union in 1937, a worker of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs finds a list of traitors, which he thinks is going to be his way out.
Agency: Verve
Agents : Aaron Hart, Rob Herting, Adam Levine
Management: Kaplan/Perrone
Manager: Alex Lerner

26
SWEET VIRGINIA
Paul China, Benjamin China
A former rodeo star unknowingly starts a rapport with a young man who is responsible  for all of the violence that has suddenly gripped his small town.
Agency: WME
Agents: Roger Green, Sarah Self
Management: Fourth Floor Productions
Manager: Jeff Silver

25
FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS
Brad Desch
A woman recalls her close relationship with her famous novelist father while struggling to overcome her fear of emotional involvement with her first real boyfriend.
Agency: ICM
Agents: Harley Copen, Bryan Diperstein, Laura Haas
Management: Management 360
Managers: Ali Itri, Jill McElroy
Production: Busted Shark

23
SHUT IN
Christina Hodson
A woman who tries to raise her catatonic son on her own suddenly discovers a  shocking secret about him.
Agency: CAA
Agents: Jay Baker, Matt Rosen
Financier: Lava Bear Films
Production: Lava Bear Films

22
THE KEEPING ROOM
Julia Hart
Three southern women defend their home from the Union army while their husbands are off fighting in the Civil War.
Agency: WME
Agents: Roger Green, Sarah Self
Management: Anonymous Content
Managers: Trevor Adley, Nicole Romano
Financier: Wind Dancer Films
Production: Gilbert Films, Wind Dancer Films, Anonymous Content

21
IF THEY MOVE’¦ KILL ‘˜EM!
Kel Symons
After losing his luster and respect in Hollywood, famed director Sam Peckinpah hopes to direct his next great film with financial backing from Colombian drug lords and brings along a novice screenwriter to write the film in Colombia.
Agency: UTA
Agents: Emerson Davis, Charles Ferraro, Geoff Morley
Management: MXN
Managers: Michelle Knudsen, Mason Novick

20
AMERICATOWN
Ben Poole
In a China-dominated near future, a former LAPD officer attempts to save his family from destitution in Los Angeles by working for a crime lord in the American ghetto within a thriving Hong Kong.
Agency: Verve
Agents: Aaron Hart, Rob Herting, Adam Levine
Management: Oasis Media Group
Managers: David Lonner, Ben Rowe
Production: Sean Finegan

Source Black List

Joshua Brunsting

Josh is a critic, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, a wrestling nerd, a hip-hop head, a father, a cinephile and a man looking to make his stamp on the world, one word at a time.