Football and Hillary Clinton collide atop this year's Black List of the best unproduced screenplays
As it has every year since 2005, the consortium of Hollywood "executives" overseen by Franklin Leonard has assembled The Black List, a prestigious of the year's most loved unproduced screenplays—screenplays that were not, in most cases, loved enough to be made into actual films. And as we have done every year we report on it, we note that films such as The King's Speech, Slumdog Millionaire, Juno, The Social Network, and Django Unchained have spent some time on The Black List, we suggest that there's a strong possibility that at least some of these new honorees may similarly go on to greatness, and then we toss water balloons at the people outside our office window who are just waiting to get on the train. "Ha ha! Happy Black List Day, suckers!" we shout at them.
Also like previous years, we mention that some of these have already been in some state of development for a while—most notably the No. 1 pick, football drama Draft Day, which was recently put into turnaround by Paramount after both Ivan Reitman and Kevin Costner had signed on to the Buffalo Bills-based story (something the studio might now be forced to reconsider). There's also The Equalizer adaptation that Nicolas Winding Refn has taken on; Transcendence, which now has Johnny Depp; and a Dr. Seuss biopic that somehow doesn’t seem to be the one that has Johnny Depp, but will probably ensure that one gets made faster.
Among the other notables: Rodham, a biopic about a young Hillary Clinton; If They Move… Kill 'Em, a story about director Sam Peckinpah trying to secure financing from Colombian drug lords; The Ballad Of Pablo Escobar, a sympathetic take on the kingpin as a desperate family man; Man Of Tomorrow, an alternate-reality tale about a gangster who's given Chicago to run in exchange for killing Hitler; Cherries, a comedy (whose name will definitely be changed) about dads trying to protect their daughters' virginities; and Come And Find Me, from Joss Whedon's brother Zack. Check out the full list with synopses right here, and then tell us which ones you're buying to produce, Mr. Big Shot Movie Producer.