The Black List's Back, And It's Worse Than Ever

Hollywood has a lot of lists. The Black List. The Blood List. The Brown List. The Brit List. The Next List. Every December, the results of a survey among execs is "published" as the Black List. It's definitely not being gamed as a circle jerk of votes-for-favours, it's definitely not gatekeeping new writers out, and it's definitely not being shaken down by GLAAD.

If you want to know what utter bullshit is going through the studio machine, or if Hollywood has learnt its lesson, it's the best place to find out.

Edit: fellow screenwriters, use the link on the menu to figure out how to send outraged personal hate mail. Make sure to send a picture of you wearing a mask at home and include a pic of your wife's boyfriend's DVD collection.

Huh?

In 2005, a British development exec and Harvard "social studies" (ahem, sociology is not story) grad Franklin Leonard emailed people and asked them which scripts they liked the most that year, but hadn't got round to producing yet. It's now a full SaaS platform: https://blcklst.com/

He's black. He made a list. He named it the Black List. These, of course, are the type of people who brought you Cinderella 3 and Titanic: the Sequel.

"What if there was a black list people actually wanted to be on?" he said.

Leonard is a highly-partisan DNC activist ("cultural commentator") who served as Democrat John Cranley's communications director and has a seemingly endless trail of vitriol on social media accounts trashing his ideological opponents.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150316002706/https://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-et-c1-franklin-leonard-black-list-20141215-story.html#page=1

That parasitical trench of villainy, GLAAD, has apparently now inserted itself where it doesn't belong - again - and now is grifting the "GLAAD List" of LGBT propaganda to keep the donations rolling in. They paid submission fees for 100 LGBT authors to submit ideological nonsense.

Let's give them some real feedback from real people who have $20 to spend on a movie instead of the smoke-blowing no-call-back version from the Water Bottle Tour.

Real Notes From The Anti-Woke

Directly from the source: https://files.blcklst.com/files/2022_black_list.pdf and https://deadline.com/2022/12/black-list-2022-unveiled-updating-live-1235194897/

The [M] or [F] by the name indicate whether the writer is [MALE] or [FEMALE]. Only one female author got into the top two brackets based on the logline premise. Men are healthily represented in the bottom ranks.

This is a crucial distinction and not a pejorative one. Men and women are interested in different things, and that's not a problem. They write about different things, because they're interested in writing about different things. They read different things, because they have different interests.

Female readers don't understand male writers, and male readers don't understand female writers. It's not haraam or some sensitive problem we can't speak about, you freaks. Girls like princesses and long-form diary voiceovers about romantic castaways; boys like fast cars and fighting. Sometimes it's not the case. It's absolutely fine.

This is hard lesson: if you're a male writer, get your notes from a male reader. And vice versa. Female readers give dreadful offense-avoiding "encouragement" about things they have no connection with whatsoever. Get a real critic to tear you apart.

And nobody gives a shit about snarky gay rom-coms or trans sob stories. Sorry lunatics, they just don't. If you don't believe that, get in the car and drive 30mins in any direction outside West Hollywood. You know what people associate with WeHo? AIDS and Monkeypox.

Top Of A Boring Pile

BEACHWOOD [M/M]
Briggs Watkins & Wes Watkins
Shunned by elite society as a member of the gig economy, a sociopathic dog walker infiltrates an exclusive L.A. community with designs of reaching the top of the neighborhood’s social ladder.

Finally, an original premise and a great Nightcrawler character.

BABY BOOM [M]
Jack Waz
When her sister’s gender reveal party triggers the apocalypse, a woman and her husband have to prove to themselves, and the world, that they’re responsible enough to save it.

So ridiculous it must be funny.

FOG OF WAR [M]
Peter Haig
When a retired war journalist returns to the outpost where her son was stationed to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, she uncovers unspeakable horrors.

Those horrors better be bad, mister writer. Really bad.

THE AMERICANO [M/M]
Nico Bellamy & Chase Pestano
An everyday guy who accidentally starts working as a barista inside the CIA headquarters building gets lured into a spy mission by a beautiful secret agent, known only to him as Caramel Macchiato.

So, so stupid. But also, slightly charming.

VITUS [M]
Julian Wayser
In 1518, a Dancing Plague overtook the city of Strasbourg in the Holy Roman Empire. Hundreds of people danced themselves to death over the course of a summer and no one knows why. Encircling medieval medicine, the uncanny, and the origins of mass hysteria, Vitus is a wildly visual exploration of a crucial (but little-known) moment in European history.

And 99.9% of all mass epidemic hysteria is an exclusively female phenomena. It does not affect men. Very interesting thing to look at.

JERRY! [M]
Greg Roque
One man ran what was declared to be the worst TV show of all-time. Responsible for the degradation of American society. All while topping Oprah in the ratings. This is the over the top, insane true story of how Jerry Springer went from ambitious young attorney, to the Mayor of Cincinnati, to the undisputed King of Trash TV. And along the way, accidentally helping to create the world we live in today.

It's time, Jerry.

BLACK KITE [M]
Dan Bulla
After a devastating wildfire wipes out a small California town, a teenage girl is missing and presumed dead. A year later, an obsessive mother and cynical arson investigator begin to suspect that she’s still alive…and in the clutches of a predator.

Great logline, original premise, nice.

Maybe, If Your Girlfriend Asked Nicely

COURT 17 [M]
Elad Ziv
An over-the-hill tennis pro, trying to salvage her career, finds herself stuck playing the first round of the US Open over and over again against one of the top players in the world. The only way to stop the loop is to win the match, a seemingly impossible task due to how overmatched she is.

Groundhog day, on a tennis court. It's not original, but it's bearable.

GOAT [M/M]
Zack Akers & Skip Bronkie
A promising first-round draft pick is invited to train at the private compound of the team’s legendary but aging quarterback. Over one week, the rising star witnesses the horrific lengths his hero will go to to stay at the top of his game.

The darker, the better. A bit like "The Wrestler".

THE MIDNIGHT POOL [M]
Jonathan Easley
Burdened by the loss of his wife to a suicide cult, an embittered investigative journalist infiltrates an elite secret society, only to find something far more sinister.

Eyes Wide Shot plot. Boring, but it'll be the cult which make it compelling.

DUMB BLONDE [M/F]
Todd Bartels & Lou Howe
The origin story of Dolly Parton, following her rise through the male-dominated music scene of late 1960s Nashville.

Dolly is an amazing woman. Bad title though.

WILD [M]
Michael Burgner
A young woman is determined to protect a thief on the run when he holes up in her small town, even if it means revealing a darker, more violent secret of her own.

Here's hoping she's an alien who grew up with wolves, and he's a real asshole, or it's going to be boring as shit.

JINGLE BELL HEIST [F]
Abby McDonald
At the height of the holiday season, two strangers team up to rob one of New York’s most famous department stores while accidentally falling in love.

OK, nice spin on the rom-com. Silly, and fun.

THE SISTERS [M]
Alexander Thompson
Identical twins Aurora and Gabrielle live in a secluded commune where all twins are raised knowing that in adolescence, one of the two of them will abruptly turn into a terrifying monster. Discovering the full truth of their situation one fateful night, the sisters plot their escape into an outside world they know little about.

Could make an epic satire about psychopathy or latent puberty.

RIPPLE [M]
Max Taxe
When a time traveler starts meddling with the past just as Miles finally meets the love of his life, he must battle ever shifting timelines to find her again.

Could be too high brow, but a hard yes.

BLACK DOGS [M]
Kieran Turner
Based on the novel by Jason Burhmester. In 1973, Led Zeppelin was robbed of nearly a quarter million dollars in cash while playing a series of concerts in New York City. The case was never solved. We follow four young friends from the streets of Baltimore as they attempt to pull off what is possibly the most brazen heist in Rock & Roll history.

Depends on the writing, so it's a 50/50.

Total Garbage, Please God Make It Stop

PURE [F]
Catherine Schetina
Obsessed with food purity, Hannah’s trip to her sister’s destination wedding descends into madness when she contracts a mysterious foodborne illness that threatens to destroy her from within.

This was the top-mentioned film. Yes, really.

PUMPING BLACK [F]
Haley Bartels
A desperate cyclist and his charismatic new team doctor concoct a dangerous training program in order to win the Tour de France. But as the race progresses and jealous teammates, suspicious authorities, and the racer’s own paranoia close in, they must take increasingly dark measures to protect both his secret and his lead.

Boring. Unless the measures include lethal steroid doses which kill him.

PIZZA GIRL [F]
Jean Kyoung Frazier
An 18-year-old pregnant pizza delivery girl falls into an obsession with a stay-at-home mother who is new to the neighborhood.

Why would anyone watch this? Who cares? Some weird lesbian mental health awareness week material?

A GUY GOES TO THERAPY [M]
Shane Mack
When an emotionally stunted townie with no direction is left by his longtime girlfriend, he has no choice but to turn to an option he would have never considered: Therapy. As a result, his entire existence is thrown into flux and his life gets a whole lot worse before it can get better.

California is the nation's psychiatric ward. No, therapy is not the answer to everything, even if you write it on your hookup app profile bio.

MADDEN [M]
Cambron Clark
After being forced into retirement by the Oakland Raiders, fiery former NFL head coach John Madden teams up with a mild-mannered Harvard programmer to rewrite his fading legacy by building the world’s first football video game. Based on a true story.

The world's first football video game. Fascinating. Next.

DYING FOR YOU [M]
Travis Braun
A low-level worker on a spaceship run by a dark god must steal the most powerful weapon in the universe to save his workplace crush.

Dumb. Just dumb.

SANG FROID [M]
Michael Basha
After a botched delivery of fresh blood, a world weary vampire and a pregnant nurse team up to rob a hospital of their supply.

Boring. Do we really need more vampire movies? Presumably this will degenerate into a Marxist critique of the 1%. Could be wrong.

JAMBUSTERS [M]
Filipe Coutinho
A mystery about what paper jams can teach us about life. After an inexperienced detective starts investigating a death at the Paper Jam department of a major corporation on the verge of its centennial, she unwittingly embarks on a life-altering spiritual journey that unearths her small town’s dark secrets.

"One woman's journey". Please, no.

WHITE MOUNTAINS [F/M]
Becky Leigh & Mario Kyprianou
After an interracial couple in the 1960s has a horrifying encounter with a UFO, they set out to discover if it actually happened, or if it is just a case of folie à deux–madness for two. Based on the true story of Barney and Betty Hill.

Civil rights AND alien abduction? Wow. No.

RESURFACED [F]
Alyssa Ross
After Michael Phelps cements his status as the greatest Olympian of all time, he struggles to build a life and identity for himself outside the pool.

So, so boring. "Identity" again. Did this even happen? Is it plausible?

OH THE HUMANITY [F]
Gillian Weeks
A dark comedy about the Hindenburg Disaster; or, the mostly true story about one of the biggest fuckups in history, the assholes who tried to cover it up, and the female gossip reporter who made some Nazis very angry.

No. Just no.

THERE YOU ARE [F]
Brooke Baker
When a non-confrontational playwright loses her engagement ring, she must travel through Italy to get it back with a man who was supposed to be just a one-night stand, discussing love and lying along the way.

Zero confrontation. Discussions. How exciting.

VIVA MEXICO [M]
Miguel Flatow
When a washed-up superhero gets betrayed by a Mexican government, he must lead a populist social movement to fight the Narcos, topple the government, and free the people.

A government, singular? Rewritten communist manifesto and Mexican socialist nonsense mixed with "Hancock".

COLORS OF AUTHORITY [M]
Kevin Sheridan
Escaping his father’s shadow, James Sexton, the son of a Sheriff in Alabama joins the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department with lofty ambitions of one day becoming Sheriff himself. But these dreams quickly sour when he realizes that the department he serves is mired in corruption and a systemic culture of moral depravity. At war with powerful figureheads within the department, threats of death looming from all sides, James betrays the department’s code of silence in order to incriminate his father’s close friend, Sheriff Lee Baca. This is based on a true story.

A true boring sociology essay, masquerading as a story.

THEY CAME FROM A BROKEN WORLD [F]
Vanessa Block
The year is 1955. The small town of Boon Falls has provided a local forest as refuge to aliens fleeing their war-torn planet. When Mia–young woman dealing with the trauma of her mother’s death–stumbles upon an Alien woman who needs her help, a series of haunting revelations in the refugee forest leads her to an unimaginable truth.

Let me guess: a woman-to-woman journey, which is harsh sociology critique of the unfairness of our current gender equity pay thigh gap?

PIKESVILLE SWEEP [M]
Brendan McHugh
After a young, newly widowed janitor in a small mining village is unexpectedly elected Mayor, she navigates a new relationship with a mysterious man from the city and tries to determine how to use her new position of power to confront the corruption that has plagued the town for years.

Here we go again. Feminism and sociology "power structures".

CLEMENTINE [M]
David L. Williams
Set in real time, a Colombian mother barely escapes a pawn shop shootout and goes on the run from her violent ex-husband, a terrifying mob boss, and a bloodthirsty hitwoman sent to collect an overdue debt, all while trying to keep her diabetic daughter safe.

A powerful woman lead, just right for the domestic violence audience. In between insulin and tampons. Just like every woman everywhere does.

LET’S GO AGAIN [M]
Colin Bannon
When her domineering director makes her film the same scene 148 times on the final night of an exhausting shoot, actress Annie Long must fight to keep her own sanity as she tries to decipher what is real, and what is part of his twisted game.

Just what everyone is fascinated by: Hollywood camera operator sexual fantasies.

THE BOY HOUDINI [M]
Matthew Tennant
New York, 1889. When young street urchin and aspiring magician Harry Houdini discovers a mysterious puzzle-box, he must use his talent for illusion and escape to unlock the box’s powerful secrets and keep it from the hands of a vengeful occult sorcerer hot on his tail.

Possibly the stupidest take on this fascinating person you'll ever see. Almost as bad as "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter".

MATCH CUT [M]
Will Lowell
While filming on location in Rome, a movie stuntman is mistaken for an infamous assassin, leading to 48 hours of madness as he’s chased through the city by both gangsters and police.

Yes, because of course, people get mistaken for assassins all the time. No.

MEGA ACTION HIT [M]
Sean Tidwell
After Hollywood’s leading action star hits his head on set and wakes up thinking he’s a real-life action hero, he embarks on an international mission to track down a real stolen nuke before it’s too late.

Could make a great satire on how self-involved Hollywood is, but it's too ludicrous to even get going. Nukes don't get "stolen" for goodness sake.

SEMPER MATERNUS [F]
Laura Kosann
On a private island off San Francisco, a nanny goes to work for a mother who is one of America’s most powerful tech entrepreneurs. Things slowly begin to devolve as the mother’s hyper-monitoring and surveillance become suffocating.

Urgh. Lesbianic aunts, interns, and other things nobody wants to watch.

SUBVERSION [M]
Andrew Ferguson
When her family is abducted, a disgraced submariner must pilot a narco submarine to its destination in less than eight hours or her husband and daughter will be killed.

Women aren't submariners, they don't get "disgraced", and nobody would hire a woman to do this. We know why you made the character female.

TOTAL LANDSCAPING [M]
Woody Bess
A day in the life of the employees of Four Seasons Total Landscaping and its neighboring businesses on November 7th, 2020: the day an average, working-class strip mall in East Philadelphia became the focal point of the most divisive presidential election in American History.

Yes, we know. You hate Trump.

CHEAT DAY [F]
Emma Dudley
When a young woman in a decade-long heterosexual relationship realizes she needs to explore her bisexuality, she and her boyfriend institute a “Cheat Day”: 24 hours in which they can do whatever–ìand whomever–before deciding whether to get engaged or break up.

Stupid, degenerate, and implausible political nonsense straight from the spare copy of Cosmopolitan in a gender studies classroom.

GOING FOR TWO [M]
Kevin Arnovitz
An openly gay NFL quarterback finds his meticulously-planned life upended on and off the field when he falls for a charming high school teacher during the most important season of his career .

Didn't learn from the disaster which was "Bros", did you? If you want to waste $30M, there are loads more interesting ways to do it.

POPULAR [F?]
Marley Schneier
GOP strategist Lee Atwater won the presidency for George H.W. Bush in 1988, and his campaign changed politics forever–and gave him the worst reputation in America. Now, Lee is on his deathbed, and he needs to tell God his side of the story…before it’s too late.

We know. You hate Republicans.

RAVENSWOOD [M]
Evan Enderle
To save her friend, a maid in a decaying manor must unravel the secrets of its inhabitants while confronting spirits, her own terrifying abilities and the very real horrors of Depression-era America lurking outside the door.

You will never be J.K Rowling.

THE HOUSE IN THE CROOKED FOREST [M]
Ian Shorr
A mother and her young son fleeing Nazi-occupied Poland are forced to take shelter from a blizzard in an isolated manor, where they discover the Nazis may be the least of their worries.

Made up Nazi stories. The Holocaust was bad enough without forest tales.

THE PACK [F]
Rose Gilroy
A group of documentarians braves the remote wilderness of Alaska in an effort to save a nearly extinct species of wolves. When the crew is brought back together at a prestigious awards ceremony, tensions flare as a deadly truth threatens to unravel their work. The team lived through the harsh elements of the wild but will a secret they share survive the night?

Let me guess. They got bitten and turn into wolves? Or one of them raped someone else, like a wild animal? Documentarians don't' save animals; they document things. "Braves" should not have an "s" because the subject  of the sentence is plural.

WHAT WE BECOME [F]
Amy Jo Johnson
A successful author/wife/mother plans a trip to a bucolic island to crack her next book and finds herself in a surprising situation.

No, no. no, no. Not even women watch this. Unless the "surprising situation" is her being impregnated by an alien, no thanks.

WHO MADE THE POTATO SALAD? [M[
Kyle Drew
A family’s Christmas dinner goes awry when a xenomorphic demon starts to duplicate and imitate each member of the family. What does it want? To show them their greatest fears.

Shapeshifting demons. Just dumb. Stop smoking weed.

IT’S A WONDERFUL STORY [F]
Alexandra Tran
In the aftermath of WWII, a traumatized Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart use the making of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE to attempt to find a way back into normalcy.

They're always traumatised, aren't they? Boring.

AN OAKLAND HOLIDAY [?/F]
Yudho Aditya & Emma Dudley
When a neglected and lonely Southeast Asian Princess goes undercover in an Oakland high school to live out her dream of being a normal teen, she discovers that happy endings come with many hard lessons about life, love, and humility.

Boring. Weird.

BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME [F]
Kristen Tepper
Two best friends run a successful underground service taking womens’ toxic exes on humiliating dates, but their friendship is put to the ultimate test when an old mark plots his revenge.

Yes, we get it. You hate your ex. Bitter, resentful feminism meh.

I LOVE YOU NOW AND FOREVER [M]
Robert Machoian
After exhausting all financial options to save their dying daughter, Frank and Abby are forced into a final act of desperation: rob a local bank.

AKA the plot of "John Q". Plagiarism should be illegal.

POP [M]
James Morosini
A kid blackmails his favorite pop star into being his best friend.

No, no, no. Read Aristotle. Probable impossibilities.

THE DEMOLITION EXPERT [M]
Colin Bannon
Blasting out of prison after being double crossed by the Mastermind of a heist, a Demolition Expert uses his genius with explosives to enact revenge on the Caper Crew who set him up while simultaneously picking up the pieces of his personal life.

The plot of "Law Abiding Citizen" with the protagonist changed to be Demolition Man. Plagiarism is not a good look.

THE HOMESTEAD [M]
Bradley Kaaya Jr.
A troubled bi-racial, inner-city teen is sent to live with his white, conservative grandfather on his ranch for the summer. Things take a turn when the two are forced to overcome their generational and racial differences while defending the ranch from a ruthless, backcountry gang.

Mixed race Gen Y good, white conservative Boomer bad. We get it. Sociology homework from your communist madrassa college.

THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES [F]
Becca Gleason
A horror thriller spin on the Brothers Grimm fairytale in which 12 female college students fight against a group of dude bros trying to take over their female-only space.

Ever take a look at the fan reviews and box office for female-only ghostbusters? Of course not.

UNDO [M]
Will Simmons
A down-on-his-luck former getaway driver comes into possession of a mysterious watch that allows the user to go back in time by one minute. As he starts to uncover its uses and gets pulled into one last heist by his former crew, a dangerous group after the technology gets on his tail and will stop at nothing to get the watch back.

Yes, because you can fit whole time travel physics department tech in a Casio macguffin from the eighties. It's the plot of "Slipstream" and about 20 others.

WEARY RIDE THE BELMONTS [M]
Josh Corbin
After staging his death many years ago, an aging gunslinger is forced to reunite with his outlaw daughter during the dying days of the west.

The classic father-daughter battle. So boring.

42.6 YEARS [M]
Seth Reiss
After waking up from a failed experimental lifesaving procedure in which he was cryogenically frozen for 42.6 years, a young man realizes he wants his ex-girlfriend back. He’ll have to overcome the fact that while he hasn’t aged a day, she’s lived an entire life without him.

WTF. This is what happens when a writer starts with an ending because he just broke up with his girlfriend, and tries to work back from it to find a premise.

BREAK POINT [M]
Zachary Joel Johnson
Courted by colleges and sponsors alike, a burnt-out tennis prodigy fights to maintain dominance against her Academy rival as she hurtles toward the existential decision of turning Pro–a choice that will force her to double down on her dream or walk away from the future she’s fought for.

Unless they're going lesbian 18 minutes in... boring, boring, boring.

CARAVAN [?]
Lindsay Michel
During the Tang Dynasty, a young Persian woman joins a Silk Road caravan to solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance‚ but must fight for survival when her fellow travelers realize there is a shapeshifting demon hiding in their midst.

This has to be a comedy. It's too dumb not to be.

GATHER THE ASHES [M]
Vikash Shankar
Two brothers, Dev and Siddharth, hope to break free of London’s foster care system when they inherit their estranged family’s old farmhouse in India, but they find something sinister lies in the roots of their family tree as they attempt to discover their past.

Why would anyone care?

HIMBO [M]
Jason Hellerman
A naive male stripper attempting to start his life over finds himself in the crosshairs of his boss’ increasingly violent divorce.

Why would anyone care?

IT’S BRITNEY, BITCH [F]
Cerina Aragones
A dramatic and musical character study of global pop icon Britney Spears, leading up to her very public unraveling at a Tarzana hair salon, and her recent courtroom victory to win her freedom back.

Great name, dumb idea. How about the time she got banned from the Chateau?

LIFE OF THE PARTY [F/F]
Julie Mandel Folly & Hannah Murphy
In this contemporary reimagining of Frankenstein, two teenage feminists struggle to create the perfect boyfriend, only to watch their experiment deteriorate as he succumbs to the ultimate perpetrator of casual high school misogyny: the football team.

Nobody is ever going to watch this. Ever. If you are dumb enough to buy this script, you deserve every investor lawsuit coming to you.

WILDFIRE [F]
Chaya Doswell
After accidentally starting a wildfire, 7-year-old Lu, mute and from an abusive home, slyly tricks Merribelle, a hardworking trans woman, into kidnapping her – sparking a beautifully unexpected bond with a devastating expiration date.

Children and trans people "bonding". No thanks.

BELOW [M/M]
Geoff Tock & Greg Weidman
Fresh out of a spell in prison a man attempts to set his life right by working a mysterious job that requires him to seek out life forms hidden amongst us.

So, "Men in Black", but... worse?

CHATTER [F]
Chris Grillot
Stranded in a small Cajun town, a young mother battling a painkiller relapse must fight to save her daughter from a demonic Tooth Fairy.

Nope.

CRAIGSHAVEN [F]
Nicole Ramberg
A troubled teen must confront a local legend when the reappearance of a missing classmate and a fabled ghost ship unravel clues to her own mother’s disappearance.

You can't do grammer gud. Can you read that sentence and understand what it means?

ETERNITY [M]
Pat Cunnane
After death, everybody gets one week to choose where to spend eternity. For Joan, Larry, and Luke, it’s really a question of who to spend it with.

Boring. How about they end up in hell?

MARRIAGE BRACKET [F/F]
Liv Auerbach & Daisygreen Stenhouse
Ten years after a group of girlfriends bet on which of them would be the last to get married, their adult lives and relationships are completely upended when they discover the $80 they drunkenly invested in Bitcoin is now worth $5.2 million.

Put the meth pipe down. You're not going to live in the Bahamas, and nobody is going to watch this. The movie is over before the end of the logline.

THE SEEKER [M]
Camrus Johnson
A childhood folktale comes to life when children of the neighborhood start to go missing after playing hide and seek. A group of friends known as “The Finder Four” set out to get answers, but instead, find themselves sucked into a fantasy fear-factor world with only one way out… Based on Daka Hermon’s Scholastic YA Novel, HIDE & SEEKER.

Great, more "young adult" adaptations. Presumably they will all be LGBT after pre-production. The book looks shit.

THE TRAP
Julie Lipson
Twin-sister trapeze artists wrestle their own inner demons amid the push-pull of career, stardom, and family, all while performing in the most harrowing production of their lives.

So, so boring. Holy shit that's so boring.

YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND
Mary Beth Barone & Erin Woods
Lily is mature, thoughtful, artistic, and… awkward. Rosie is sweet, caring, and popular with dreams of being a star. When Lily breaks down in tears on her 15th birthday because she has no friends, her Aunt Beth (a hot shot at a big movie studio) devises a plan. Aunt Beth agrees to jump start Rosie’s acting career as long as she can convincingly play the role of a lifetime: Lily’s best friend. Aunt Beth has the scheme and Rosie has the talent. All they have to do is get away with it.

That's nice. But it's not an interesting or exciting film, is it?

Writers: Stop Supporting This Crap

Publish your work privately, as playwrights do. Sell performance licenses for it in exchange for royalties, and prohibit changes. You don't need to sell it on Amazon; look at magicians who publish magic tricks ("effects").

Do you think popularity lists for the high school Hollywood system are good? Do you want to go on existing like this, selling to this people?

"Unfortunately, Hollywood is full of execs just like her--young men and women who don't know what they want until it's been spelled out for them beat-by-beat. And by then, half the town may be bidding on the same project--because when writers put in that much work to one pitch, they're never taking it to just one shop. So execs like them will always be at the back of the line, and their careers inevitably stall."
https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/ytp9v1/its_not_me_its_youor_how_i_learned_to_stop/

These are not your "friends".

There is one law: copyright.

Understand it. The law makes you bigger and more powerful than a studio.

It's why the studios slap their copyright notices on every page once they've paid for it. And why they tell you not to put yours on.

Because you're dumb.

Hollywood is a circus of perfidious sharks with very big teeth who are extremely skilled at rape, and desperate for their next meal. They have to keep swimming or they drop dead.

Tell them this:

1. Your (screen) play is privately published by your LLC and printed on demand. It is not distributed publicly, but available for private viewing.
2. They can license the performance rights to it in order to dramatise it in audio and video for an audience. Per country.
3. They must pay royalties on their gross receipts. Per country.
4. They make not make any changes without written permission. If they would like to make changes, they should pay for an exclusive license which allows them to create a derivative production based on the work.
5. When they steal it or change it, sue them for copyright infringement as they sue pirates using Bittorrent to download movies. And invoke penalty clauses of 5000% just to make it clear.

When they call your bluff, walk away.

If they want it, they'll bend.

Then get a theatrical lawyer to handle a licensing agreement when they make a shitty offer to attempt to "option" it and finally give in once you've told them "no" for six months.