Scott Crawford

20 minutes... So far, I've got PDFs for about 36 of the scripts.

If you live in USA, VERY weird. You're supposed to see about 50 TV spots for each upcoming movie.

Tess McGill, Working Girl.

Spec_Writer, no, I'd not heard of any success from Inktip. Do you have the names of any of the films (I'll accept that they might not be studio releases)?

Thanks, chando. But I think that Nightingale (originally Ashland Avenue) may be their only success story after several years (better than Inktip?).

I can't get recall hearing of any of them again, and not surprising really. I'm sure they're beautifully written, but most of the loglines sink me into a pit of depression. Give me "Icarus is Burning" any day!

Good spec-writing weather!

What if a Greenpeace activist awoke after a 20-year coma into a future world where everything's clean, then spends the movie trying to find something to campaign about now his life has lost all meaning.

I love you, man!

Don't have it, just going by the logline. Would be interesting to see if the execution is solid as the idea is - my opinion - run-of-the-mill.

The success of American Sniper will make it easier for everyone to sell more serious fare. And not just AS - Fury, Unbroken, The Imitation Game... there's an appetite out there for stories about heroes, all sorts of heroes, who don't necessarily have superpowers.

It seems a little much some times, especially if there's no sell. Then again, CBS just bought Senior Year, so...

Ransom. Brilliant.

Why is "Guardians" a surprise? Why should only "Oscar-type" screenplays be nominated for "Oscar-type" awards? The dichotomy (think that's the right word) between art and commerce heightened by awards season is one of the reasons for poor quality in movies. When a well-liked movie achieves awards success, it encourages studios to consider how important things like screenplays really are.

Woah! You don't need my advice! Well done!

Good resolution. My advice - for what it's worth - try and crank out a few great scripts, not just the one. I think that's the mistake people could make - spend all year writing that one script. Increase your odds of getting on the list and have a back-up script when your first one gets attention. Best of luck!

Scripts that always seem to come up on the annual Black List:

The “Cease and Desist” script: Scripts that will NEVER be made for legal reasons but which grab people's attentions.

The “Deja Vu” script: Not the Rossio/Marsilli one that sold for five million a decade ago, but an unacknowledged remake of another movie. Possibly slightly improved on, but a bit cheeky.

The “Handicapped” script: Scripts where the writer “handicaps” themselves by making the script...

Chris MacQuarrie said winning an Oscar for his first script (Usual Suspects) was the worst thing that could happen to him. I would say that getting on the Black List COULD be a bad thing for a writer. Good advice would be, always have a second (or third) script ready when you put your first script "out there." Then, if the first gets attention but then stalls, you've got another chance.

Mmmm... you're really narrowing it down, McGeek!

No, seriously, it's not just the case that many of these BL scripts didn't get made... many the writers no longer have representation.

There's some good loglines in there, but there's a lot of "look-at-me" scripts. A thriller about a guy who communicates by blinking; be interesting to read the script, see how the writer handles it, but... that's one tough sell. OK, there's the one about the guy hiding behind a wall, and that's all it is, sort of like Phone Booth or Frozen (the other one) - neither of which set the box office alight. There's a lot of stuff about spying during the Cold War and b...

Rothchild = Kind Hearts and Coronets AND The List of Adrian Messenger

Situation Comedy = Pleasantville

Tau = Demon Seed

The Munchkin = Under the Rainbow

The Long Haul = That episode of Monk where Monk's dad is a trucker... and lots of other movies. Over the Top, for example.

In the Deep = Open Water

The Search = A low-altitude version of Vertical Limit

Bismarck = Sink the Bismarck!

I think some people are just amazed that people could have written a script about Catherine the Great or Jim Henson, or whatever, it doesn't really matter whether the scripts are any good or not. In my opinion. I'll wait until the full list is published - that PDF thing - and then it'll be interesting to see how many of these scripts are of real commercial potential, or - as I think some people have feared over recent years - is this just a parade of non-commercial scripts to cock...