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. Here are updates on picks 15 to 11 of 2007.
15. Edwin A. Salt (Votes: 11)
Writer: Kurt Wimmer
Status: Released July 23, 2010.
An already established writer, I’m sure Kurt Wimmer was somewhat surprised that he’d have to re-tailor his original screenplay to switch the gender of the lead role. Columbia Pictures coined the new version Salt, and had Phillip Noyce direct Angelina Jolie, who took on the newly named character of Evelyn Salt. Released July 23rd this year, the 110,000 million dollar budgeted film covered costs in his domestic take and made a total of close to 300,000 million worldwide.
14. Source Code (Votes: 13)
Writer: Ben Ripley
Status: To be released April 1st, 2011.
The spec was originally sold to Universal and helmer Shane Abbess was originally suppose to direct, but then fresh off his sci-fi debut, Duncan Jones and the film’s lead Jake Gyllenhaal signed on and Michelle Monaghan and Vera Farmiga would follow. The 50 Million dollar project is a Summit Ent. project and gets a release next year. Ripley has since penned genre studio projects Red Cell, In Vitro and Dominion.
13. The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman (Votes: 14)
Writer: Matt Drake
Status: Pre-Production
The project officially picked up steam this April when Shia LaBeouf was assigned the lead role, but production has yet to begin. Dante Ariola will direct the story of a “young man named Charlie takes a trip to Budapest. En route, the passenger next to him, an old Hungarian man, dies. Charlie, who promised the man to bring his daughter a gift, falls in love with her, then discovers that she has a violent past.” Since 2007, Matt Drake was a scribe on Warner Bros.’ Project X.
12. Pierre Pierre (Votes: 16)
Writers: Edwin Cannistraci & Frederick Seton
Status: In Development
Not much movement has been made on the project since mid 2009 when Larry Charles was tapped to direct and Jim Carrey was prepped to star as a French nihilist who is asked to smuggle a stolen Mona Lisa. The Fox Searchlight project appears to be going nowhere fast, but Edwin Cannistraci & Frederick Seton have since set up a project at Universal with producer Jay Roach and Mongoose for Disney.
11. Dubai (Votes: 16)
Writer: Adam Cozad
Status: Unknown
Based on Christopher Reich’s novel, this is about “a young economist is forced to go on the run to prove his innocence after Iranian operatives in Dubai use him as part of a plot to collapse the United States economy.” Adam Cozad’s script would go onto switch titles for Rules of Deception and may still belong to Paramount, but there hasn’t been much activity on the title. Oddly enough, Cozad was hired for the next Jack Ryan spy thriller titled Moscow and to adapt another book in The Gray Man and The Brotherhood of the Rose.
