The Black List Update: Picks 16 to 11 of 2008

While the top of the 2008 list does have some exceptional projects that have already gone under the lense, Quentin Tarantino’s war epic is the only film in this section that hasn’t had trouble monetizing on it’s Black List “status”. Just behind picks 1 to 15 we find The Descendants, Going the Distance, Nowhere Boy and Kevin Smith’s Couple of Dicks (Cop Out).

15. The Tutor (Tie: 15 Votes)

Writer: Matthew Fogel
Status: Unknown

The project 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,” is currently set up at Principato/Young Management. But there have been no updates on the project since. Fogel was assigned the third part of Martin Lawrence’s man in a fat suit: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son.

15. Manuscript (Tie: 15 Votes)

Writer: Paul Grellong
Status: Unknown

Playwright Paul Grellong would adapt his own play into a top spec which is being housed by The Film Department and producer Donna Gigliotti – again, since it’s BlackList mention there appears to be no movement on the “contemporary thriller about three bright, young New Yorkers with boundless literary ambition who will stop at nothing to get what they want.”

13. The West is Dead (Tie: 16 Votes)
Writer: Andrew Baldwin
Status: Unknown

From what we last know, Andrew Baldwin’s screenplay which is set during “the Great Depression, a group of semi-outlaws go on the run from the law when forced to vacate a town as the Hoover dam is constructed,” still remains available (Anonymous Content), but the list mention appears to has got the scribe’s foot in the door and earlier this year he was mentioned as the scribe assigned to write Timur Bekmambetov’s Red Asphalt.

13. Galahad (Tie: 16 Votes)
Writer: Ryan Condal
Status: Unknown

While there appears to be no news to report on the status a screenplay with a revisionist twist on the King Arthur legend (The Film Department. Energy Entertainment producing), this Black List mention appears to have essentially landed scribe Ryan Condal several other leads: Hercules: The Thracian Wars, Queen & Country, Ocean and is in pre-production on Paradise Lost for helmer Alex Proyas.

12. Untitled Vanessa Taylor Project (20 Votes)
Writer: Vanessa Taylor
Status: In Development

Midway this year we got a status update on what is known as Great Hope Springs. Mandate has attached Mike Nichols to direct and the not too shabby pairing of Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges to star as a middle-aged couple who attend an intense counseling weekend to decide the fate of their marriage. TV writer Vanessa Taylor has nothing else in the works.

11. Inglorious Basterds (21 Votes)
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Status: Released

Needing no introduction here is a quick recap: preemed at Cannes in May, released in theaters in August, amassed 120 million in domestic and 320 million worldwide.