Eric Lavallée

It's always comes as a surprise to look back on some of the bottom-feeders on some of these Black Lists. In 2007, Oscar winner for Best Picture Slumdog Millionaire (Simon Beaufoy) had six votes, Robert Siegel's The Wrestler had five, an untitled Pharmaceutical script (later known as Love & other Drugs) by Charles Randolph would get four, with John Patrick Shanley's Doubt and Jon Lucas & Scott Moore's Hangover receiving three votes and Tony Gilroy's Duplicity receiving a pair. It's worth mentioning that those who received the least amount of votes could have simply not have been seen by enough eyes --- the Black List isn't perfect science.

What I like most about the annual Black List is that there isn't any favoritism according to the projected financial size of a screenplay. For fun, you could scan down any list since its inception and you'll find equal parts indie/Sundace/small budget and studio/multiplex/limitless budgets. If you look at the price tag for 2007's top screenplay (Recount) and say picks #14 and #15 which have a budget that range somewhere between 50 to 100 times more.

Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of visionary filmmakers? As part of our monthly IONCINEPHILE profile (read here), we ask the filmmaker the incredibly arduous task of identifying their top ten list of favorite films. We cap off the year with Ry Russo-Young, whose Sundance Film Festival selected and Gotham Award winner YOU WONT MISS finally receives a December 10th release followed by a nationwide roll out.

It took over a decade for Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine to materialize and I've got a good feeling that it won't be much longer until he officially starts lensing his next project. Ryan Gosling is keeping the brotherhood alive, and has boarded The Place Beyond the Pines - one of the many original projects that the filmmaker (he also scripting a TV show for HBO) has been working on.

Of all the Black List years (dating back to 2005), 2006 has the distinction of being the only year where the top voted screenplay hasn't already been filmed. 2005 topper Things We Lost in the Fire was quickly put into production, 2007's Recount was an HBO film, 2008's The Beaver by Kyle Killen (read our profile) is in the can and ready to go forth with a theatrical release, and finally last year's The Muppet Man is currently lensing and still adding more faces (Emily Blunt and Ricky Gervais) while in production and it's pegged with a Holiday release next year. Here are updates on the top 5 screenplays for 2006.