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Black List 2019: Films on Fleetwood Mac, Barron Trump, Nicolas Cage Among List of Best Unproduced Scripts
66 screenplays make up 15th edition of annual list
Brian Welk | December 16, 2019 @ 12:14 PM Last Updated: December 16, 2019 @ 12:59 PM
The Black List
The 2019 edition of the annual Black List was unveiled by founder Franklin Leonard on Monday, and films about the band Fleetwood Mac, President Trump’s son Barron Trump and a meta-movie about Nicolas Cage are among the best, unproduced screenplays circling the industry.
The 15th edition of the Black List featured 66 different scripts, some of which already have financiers, while others are still seeking backing.
Among some of the notable titles is “Barron: A Tale of Love, Loss and Legacy,” a script by Nicolas Curcio that follows Barron Trump at age 10 ahead of the 2016 election as he attempts to sabotage his father’s 2016 presidential campaign after he fears what becoming part of the first family would have on his personal life.
“Rumours” is a musical biopic about the life of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham as the two friends and lovers join Fleetwood Mac and are thrown into a world of fame, drug addiction and potentially the disintegration of their relationship after writing one of the best selling albums of all time. Tyler Austin and Patrick Eme wrote the script.
There’s also “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” which is a meta-movie about actor Nicolas Cage as he decides to make an appearance at the birthday party of a Mexican billionaire and head of a drug cartel as he tries to get out of a spiral of debt. Interestingly enough however, the film piqued the interest of Cage himself, who will star in the film that is already being backed by Lionsgate. Kevin Etten and Tom Gormican wrote the script.
Topping the list with 29 mentions among the Hollywood executives who voted on the list is “Move On” by writer Ken Kobayashi. The film is a sci-fi about a man who thinks he’s the only one left alive after all of humanity has been frozen in time, only to discover that someone else still alive is his ex-girlfriend, with whom he must go on a journey to figure out the cause of the freeze. Sony is already financing the film from producer Olive Bridge.
The Black List is not a list of the “best” screenplays but the most “liked” screenplays. Founder Franklin Leonard compiles a survey of 250 film executives who each contribute a list of their 10 favorites that circulated in 2019 and have not yet begun principal photography, though some of the films already have financial support and other backing. A film must have had at least six mentions from film executives before it could be considered for the list.
This year, 29% of the scripts are written by at least one woman, and 58% of the films could be described as “female-driven,” according to a graph shared on Twitter by The Black List. The group adds that on average over the last four years, approximately 26% have been written by women.
Some movies that have appeared on The Black List in past years include this year’s “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” “Jojo Rabbit and “Booksmart.”
Since the launch of the first Black List in 2005, more than 440 scripts have been produced, grossing over $28 billion in box office worldwide. Black List movies have won 53 Academy Awards from 262 nominations, including four of the last twelve Best Picture Oscars and ten of the last twenty-four Best Screenplay Oscars.
View the full list of scripts here.