The 2008 Black List (Unproduced Screenplays) Update: Where are they Now?

We have year end favorite film lists, we have decade lists, but my favorite list of all is the Black List. Now in year 5, the annual list of the most popular unproduced screenplays voted by script readers who 9 times out of 10 are forced to read utter crap, will soon be unveiled – I suggest you check out the twitter feed for updates. As the votes are being tallied up, I thought we’d go back one year and see where we were at with the top 15 projects of the list. Only three films from that batch have moved beyond the “in development” status. While the top screenplay (see Gibson and the beaver) is currently in post and Tarantino worked at lightning speed with Basterds, the only other project in the top tier that is receiving the green light is I’m with Cancer. Before we check out the top 15, I thought it be worth mentioning the films that didn’t crack the top of the list.

Going down the list we have the Nat Faxon & Jim Rash’s The Descendants which becomes Alexander Payne’s next directing gig, the Geoff LaTulippe written Going the Distance via director Nanette Burstein is in the can and dated, Matt Greenhalgh’s Nowhere Boy (director Sam Taylor Wood) has already preemed on the other side of the pond. The much talked about Kevin Smith film, A Couple of Dicks from Mark and Robb Cullen gets out of the theatrical release gates very soon, Olatunde Osunsanmi just released his film The Fourth Kind in theaters this fall, Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air is coming next week with plenty of Oscar buzz, and Screen Gems releases Will Gluck’s Easy A in March.

Towards the end of the list we find William Monahan’s London Boulevard, which is currently in post, Hanna Weg’s The Beautiful and the Damned is slotted for a Spring 2010 shoot with John Curran helming and Keira Knightley starring, Miramax is in post prod with The Debt (scripted by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn) and starring Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson (see above) and is directed by John Madden, and finally, one of the last projects on the long list of mentions we find Tony Peckham’s Sherlock Holmes, which is of course Guy Ritchie’s film being release by WB next month.

1. The Beaver (67 Mentions)
Status: Post Production. Kyle Killen’s script was hot enough to attract the likes of Steve Carell and Jim Carrey but once Jodie Foster came on board to direct she put in a call to good friend Mel Gibson for the lead. Summit Entertainment joined the project after a couple of weeks of lensing. The tale about a depressed man who finds hope in a beaver puppet is currently in post, so a 2010 release is assured and we can expect a tentpole release of sorts. 

2. The Oranges (61 Mentions)
Status: In Development. Since the list got published, Julian Farino (a director on Entourage) has been attached to direct. Jay Reiss & Ian Helfer’s screenplay is about a man who has a romantic relationship with the daughter of a family friend, which turns
their lives upside down.

3. Butter (44 Mentions)
Status: In Development. Jason Micallef’s script attracted director Jim Field Smith (upcoming She’s Out of My League) and actress Jennifer Garner in the tale about a small town becomes a center for controversy and jealousy as its annual butter carving contest begins. I imagine production begins sometime early next year.

4. Big Hole (42 Mentions)
Status: In Development. Gore Verbinski attached himself to direct the project earlier on this year, but we haven’t heard anything since on Michael Gilio’s script about an old cowboy goes on a mission to recover his money after a million dollar sweepstakes scam cleans out his entire bank account.

5. The Low Dweller (40 Mentions)
Status: In Development. I wouldn’t be surprised if this goes into production sometime next year. The project has got some major players involved with Scott Free and DiCaprio’s Appian Way producing and midway in the year, commercials director Rupert Sanders was attached to helm.

6. Fuckbuddies (39 Mentions)
Status: In Development. Montecito still have Liz Meriwether’s script about a guy and a girl struggle to have an exclusively sexual relationship on pause.

7. Winter’s Discontent (34 Mentions)
Status: In Development. Atlas/Columbia Pictures have attached Borat’s Larry Charles to direct the comedy. Paul Fruchbom script start when Herb Winter’s wife of fifty years dies. The faithful but sexually frustrated widower moves into a retirement community to start living the swinging single life.

8. Broken City (29 Mentions)
Status: In Development. Mandate were hoping to get into production but no director is attached so far. Scripted by Brian Tucker, this is about a New York private investigator gets sucked into a shady mayoral election.

9. I’m with Cancer (24 Mentions)
Status: Pre-Production. There has been a lot of activity on this project. Seth Rogen and James McAvoy joined the project and they were good to go with Nicole Holofcener helming, but she just left the project this month. This is an autobiographical comic account of one man’s struggle to beat cancer.

10. Our Brand is Crisis (22 Mentions)
Status: In Development. We’ll put this one in the folder labeled “not any time soon”. Smokehouse parted ways with Warner Bros. and brought the Peter Straughan screenplay with them, but the climate right now is cold for political films.

11. Inglourious Basterds (21 Mentions)
Status: Completed. Played at Cannes to mixed reviews but when it came time to its release, it found critics and public embrace it – making for a great domestic and international box office take for the Universal Pictures and The Weinstein Company folks. 

12. Great Hope Springs (Formerly called “Untitled Vanessa Taylor Project”) (20 Mentions)
Status: In Development. The screenplay’s log line goes like this: after thirty years of marriage, a middle-aged couple attends an intense counseling weekend to decide the fate of their marriage.

13. Galahad (16 Mentions)
Status:  Unknown. Project hasn’t moved and screenwriter Ryan Condal has been hired for other projects. This was a revisionist twist on the King Arthur legend from the knight Galahad’s perspective.

14. The West is Dead (16 Mentions)
Status: Unknown. Andrew Baldwin’s screenplay is set during the Great Depression, and sees a group of semi-outlaws go on the run from the law when forced to vacate a town as the Hoover dam is constructed.”…

15. Manuscript (15 Mentions)
Status: Unknown. Paul Grellong’s screenplay focuses on three bright, young New Yorkers with boundless literary ambition who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

15. The Tutor (15 Mentions)
Status: Unknown. Matthew Fogel’s screenplay is about a twenty three year old recent graduate decides, at his mother’s insistence, to tutor his ex-girlfriend’s younger sister for the SATs. When they begin a romantic relationship, his ex-girlfriend moves back home for the summer and begins to fall back in love with our anti-hero as well.