In 2005 film executive Franklin Leonard created the Black List, a ledger of what consists of the best non-produced screenplays floating around the industry. Compiled from a survey sent out to almost 500 producers, the Black List has since become a pool of up and coming screenwriting talent, some of whom have actually made it to the big time. The list has been updated at the end of each year and has become one of the most buzzed about topics for Hollywood insiders. So much so that some of the titles cited have been finally been greenlit thanks to the attention provided for by the Black List.
The latest iteration was unveiled December of last year – three months ago – and here are ten titles we’d like to see adapted for the screen.
1. “Bubbles” by Isaac Adamson
Photo credit: Sculpture by Jeff Koons
Logline: “A baby chimp is adopted by the pop star Michael Jackson. Narrating his own story, Bubbles the Chimp details his life within The King of Pop’s inner circle through the scandals that later rocked Jackson’s life and eventually led to Bubbles’ release.”
Adamson’s left-field concept is so crazy we have to see this on the big screen (or at least within the comfort of our home via VOD). If Hollywood is producing a movie based on a rumored road trip taken by Jackson, Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor – while casting Joseph Fiennes as Jackson no less – then there’s no reason why the story of a recording superstar and his pet monkey shouldn’t get the attention it deserves.
2. “Eli” by David Chirchirillo
Logline: “Having moved into a “clean house” to treat his auto-immune disorder, eleven-year-old Eli begins to believe that the house is haunted. Unable to leave, Eli soon realizes that the house, and the doctor who runs it, are more sinister than they appear.”
We find this interesting if not for the fact it resolves a simple issue that plagues most haunted house movies: why don’t the living just leave the house? It turns out our main protagonist may have no choice.
3. “All the Money in the World” by David Scarpa
Photo credit: Dilif
Logline: “The story of the Getty kidnapping crisis encompassing the Red Brigades, the Italian tabloids, and the Vatican.”
At the age of 16, Paul Getty was kidnapped in Rome. What happened next just aches to be a movie: bungling kidnappers, a stubborn patriarch who initially refused to pay the ransom, and a defunct Italian postal system not only led to some fairly wild twists but also the mutilation of the kidnapping victim.
4. “Do No Harm” by Julia Cox
Logline: “an ambitious surgeon’s life takes a dangerous turn when she indulges in an affair with a doctor whose god complex challenges her own.”
Sure this sounds suspiciously like a Lifetime Network flick (or a variation on a potboiler ala “Fifty Shades of Grey”), but there’s something about the logline potentially promising David Cronenberg-like body horror. And we love us some David Cronenberg-like body horror (if anything, this kind of reminds us of Cronenberg’s “Dead Ringers.”)
5. “The Wretched Emily Erringer” by Chris Thomas Devlin
Still from the movie “Stoker,” about a teenage girl and her psychotic uncle. Photo credit: Fox Searchlight Features.
Logline: “Gleefully terrifying her small town as a serial killer known as ‘The Misfit Butcher,’ 13-year-old Emily Derringer becomes annoyed when a new killer comes to town and residents begin attributing his sloppy murders to the Misfit Butcher. In a macabre coming of age story, Emily must deal with her competition while also taking on the other trials and tribulations of junior high school life.”
Or, if you’d rather, “’Dexter’ meets ‘My So-Called Life.’” ‘Nuff said.
6. “The Virginian” by Michael Russell Gunn
Logline: “Based on the novel by Owen Wister, a young, down-and-out George Washington, desperate to join the British Army, accepts a dangerous mission to conquer a French fort and save the American colonies.”
There’s nothing like a period specific action flick to get our blood running. Starring one of our founding fathers.
7. “Nyad” by Robert Specland
Logline: “Based on the true story of marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, who in 2013, after four failed attempts and at the age of 64, became the first person ever to open-swim from Cuba to Florida (55 hours non-stop) overcoming impossible odds, personal tragedy, and 103 miles of open ocean.”
The logline pretty much speaks for itself. However, giving any actress an opportunity to carry a film like this, particularly one that is older than forty, is the icing on the cake for us.
8. “Labyrinth” by Christian Contreras
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Photo Credit: (L) MTV Photo Gallery and (R) Albert Watson
Logline: “Based on the book Labyrinth” by Randall Sullivan. The story of the investigation into the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG.”
The story of the relationship between Shakur and BIG and their eventual demise has been the subject of much speculation bordering on myth. It makes us curious to see just what Contreras has to say via the big screen.
9. “Final Journey” by Michael Lee Barlin
Logline: “A mistreated elderly Inuit (Eskimo) woman is forced out of her village to survive alone on the savage arctic tundra.”
Survival stories have been a mainstay genre since, well, the beginning of the early talkies. Heck, “The Revenant” is nominated for Best Picture and “Final Journey” seems to promise an ethnic, more feminist spin on the theme.
10. “An African Western” by Chloe Castellon and Ridgeway Wilson
Photo credit: Happiness Stephen
Logline: “When a young African woman’s village is destroyed by a “Christian” paramilitary unit and her sister is kidnapped, she uses every weapon at her disposal on an odyssey to save her last living relative.”
This sounds like a really, really original take on the revenge thriller/”Taken” style of action adventure. But instead of a he-man, Liam Neeson type, the leading character is a “young African woman.” Color us intrigued.
