Have you ever wondered how something you’re watching actually became a movie? You know, how you look at Adam Sandler up on the screen doing some sort of crazy man, goof shuffle, while wearing a dress, sitting on a donkey, and getting punched in the face by a ten year-old? Yes, well, someone, at some studio, decided this was a good idea, and then they told people, and more people, and look what just happened! Sandler was called, a director was hired, and voila…crap on a stick! Well, the annual Black List is an integral part for some of these movies. It’s the list of the most popular “unproduced” screenplays that could make it to theaters.
The Black List is compiled from the suggestions of more than 300 industry executives who pick up to ten of their favorite scripts. In order to make the Black List, each screenplay must have at least six mentions (or votes) to be included. That’s not to say that each film is in the category of the “best film ever written.” Some actually seem like they’re pretty horrible, and should never see the light of day. However, what’s probably important to remember is sometimes it’s based more on what will rake in the most money, and not perhaps, what will be the best film of the year.
Keeping that in mind, here are a few that seem like “money makers” but not necessarily great, or even good films (number of votes in parenthesis). In fact, there are elements that could make them just out and out suck, or so says Spirit Fingers, your erstwhile judge based on the logline descriptions.
Maggie (30)
by John Scott
What is it?: As a “walking dead” virus spreads across the country, a farm family helps their eldest daughter come to terms with her infection as she slowly becomes a flesh-eating zombie.
Why it could suck:
Is this movie exactly about what happens on the Greene farm in The Walking Dead?! No, no. They can’t be serious. This isn’t the exact story line the actual show could come back with next year during the continuation of the season, especially since the character’s name is Maggie, just like the Maggie who’s Hershel Greene’s daughter on TWD. So, yawr, whatever…this is probably exactly what we think it is, but in case it isn’t, it sounds like one of those “documentary exorcist” movies now with extra zombies! Oh, goodie, prepare for some creepily eyed girl in a nightgown contorting her body in strange new ways, while people scream and run out of a barn while we wonder if “Maggie” is really the devil.
The End (28)
by Aron Eli Coleite
What is it?: Four people – a veteran broadcaster in London, a sixteen year old girl and her boyfriend in Ann Arbor, and a devoted family man in Shanghai – each try to make peace with their lives before an interstellar event ends the world in six hours.
Why it could suck:
Well, if it isn’t the latest Crash-a-Babel existentialist navel-grazer. We haven’t seen a movie like this in like three years or so, no reason why we can’t flick the bedbugs off it and roll it out again. It’s not like we haven’t missed the intersecting story/apocalyptic/disaster type movie. No, surely not. I imagine the social commentary in this film will be about the “Fleeting moments in life. Race, gender, ethnicity — none of it matters when imminent death is at hand, across the globe, in your own living room — and scene!”
Ezekiel Moss (27)
by Keith Bunin
What is it?: A mysterious stranger who possibly has the power to channel the souls of the dead changes the lives of everyone in a small Nebraska town, especially a young widow and her 11-year-old son.
Why it will suck:
Even John Travolta just sat up and said, “Hey! I did this movie! Yup, you get to say things like, Even at our worst…man will always come through in the end…you…just…have…to…believe” And well, when Travolta and his hair wig can look at you without shame and quote the exact opening line to a movie before it’s even been made, well, you’d better take a hard look at what you’re doing there, Hollywood. Also, does Ezekiel Moss, starring Colin Hanks, have a book — you know like Eli’s book, or some other magic religious talisman, because it’s not mentioned here in the thinly veiled movie description about faith and religion.
He’s Fuckin’ Perfect (24)
by Lauryn Kahn
What is it?: A social media savvy girl who is pessimistic about love finds the perfect guy and decides to use her internet research skills to turn herself into his perfect match.
Why it could suck:
Starring Katherine Heigl and Chris Evans! Yes, seriously, can’t you see Heigl, the jawing lady-shrew, and Evans, muscle bound frat chode, smushing around this movie with all the Taylor Swift songs, furiously pounding on their laptops while they drink lattes and giggle-snort during this whole thing? Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman will play the plucky best friends/sidekicks. There will be stuttering and flustered talking, some awkward sex scene, and people running through Central Park once “Beth” and “Brian” finally discover how much they lurve each other’s clichéd, movie persona.
Bethlehem (23)
by Larry Brenner
What is it?: A group of people struggling to survive a zombie apocalypse make an alliance with a vampire, trading themselves as food in exchange for protection since zombies don’t eat vampire.
Why it could suck:
Whoa! Whoa! Hold on there! First of all, how do we know zombies don’t eat vampire? Is this a forgone conclusion? Where in the zombie annals is this written in stone? I’d think if it has a brain, a zombie would chomp on it without too much trouble. “Human foot…good! Vampire face…better!” I’ve never known them to be so discerning. You movie people just make up rules now? No, seriously, this sounds crazy town, Monster Squad laughably stupid. MissLinda and I could have written this. The addition of the beaten-with-a-dead horse vampire thing mixed with the decaying limbs of the zombie genre is stretching this thing into a place of such absurd meta we can see what the writers are thinking before the bubble of brain poop emerges.
The Three Misfortunes of Geppetto (20)
by Michael Vukadinovich
What is it?: A prequel to the story of Pinocchio in which Geppetto endures a life of misfortune, war, and adventure, all to be with Julia Moon, his true love.
Why it could suck:
What the hell? Tell us, Jiminy Crunch Bug, why do we give a crap about Geppetto’s sorry life? I imagine if he wants a wooden boy for a son, this dude is already three peels short a banana, right? Now he has a life and a love interest…yadda, yadda. This is good enough, yes? If he’s found someone who’ll love him and his delusions about that marionette, then we should all be happy, right? I mean internet dating…yeah, internet dating kind of sucks, but obviously Geppetts has made it work! His online profile probably didn’t play up the whole wooden boy aspect, though. Okay, sure, but doesn’t he still end up in a whale? Nevermind, no, nope. We won’t focus on that.
The Slackfi Project (16)
by Howard Overman
What is it?: A hapless and broken hearted barista is visited by two bad-ass soldiers from the future who tell him mankind is doomed, and he alone can save them.
Why it could suck:
Sam Worthington and Jean Claude Van Damme team up to take out ZORA, the intergalactic agency that will ultimately take over Earth and render all mankind as slaves in a world overrun with outlander gangs and marauding pirates looking for natural resources. Remember Ice Pirates? Yeah, like that. Instead of a group of heroes, only “Ziff” and “Zyphod” can save everyone from the daily terrors of what man has turned into, and the takeover by the automated council of ZORA. The Slackfi Project will submission hold its way into theaters Memorial Day 2013!
Leaving Pete (11)
by Ali Waller, Morgan Murphy
What is it?:
A recently divorced author is stunned when his ex writes a popular book about their breakup, and he has to keep that fact secret from his new girlfriend, who works for the book’s publisher.
Why it could suck:
Paul Rudd and Elizabeth Banks play the title characters, because seriously how is Paul Rudd not this guy all of the time? I can’t remember a movie where Rudd isn’t this guy. He needs to stop being this guy. This guy sucks. This guy wears brown slacks, a short sleeved work shirt, and Rockports. Dane Cook will appear as his dickface best friend, Todd. Because if I just can’t call Dane Cook the equivalent of what a guy looks like with a testicle for a head, then I might as well call him Todd. Pete-Paul Rudd will make us all cringe as his masculinity is mauled throughout the entire movie like a dingo with a piece of jerky.
Dirty Grandpa (11)
by John Phillips
What is it?: A young groom engaged to a demanding woman is forced to spend the week before his wedding with his half-blind, half-crazy, and wholly horny grandfather. Through this wild journey, his grandfather shows him how to take life by the balls and lead with his heart.
Why it could suck:
Ben Stiller! Yep, Ben Stiller and Christopher Walken will make you recoil justly while all the old man with cooties jokes fly at you like a shitbag thrown at your head at 95 mph! Stiller will do that confused, bleating screech thing he does when everything about his day just goes wrong. Grandpa will fall off a cliff, or find himself in the Champagne Room in a strip club while bodily functions erupt, and some polite actress, Olivia Wilde perhaps, will furrow her brow as Stiller more and more frantically tries to explain what he and oily handed Walken have been up to.
Subject Zero (7)
by Dave Cohen
What is it?:A Frankenstein-like tale of a scientist who develops a powerful new drug that brings his son back to life after he dies in a terrible car accident. Unfortunately, the desperate experiment of a loving father leads to the creation of a flesh-eating zombie epidemic with horrific consequences.
Why it could suck:
“Sometimes Dead is Better.” Oh, where is that movie quote from? I can’t remember. I just randomly thought up this quote because it sounds a bit like this movie premise. Anybody remember what it’s from? Oh, well. Probably what will happen is the son comes back as some sort of undead monster who is truly evil and is only out to kill. Maybe the dad will try this drug on some animal first — like his daughter’s cat. BUT THEN even after the experiment with his son, who we’ll call Grage, fails he’ll try again, but this time with his wife! This will be scary, and original, and turned into a television series by someone named Krephen Sting.
Here are the Top 20 with the Most Votes (You’ll note some are on the same list of potential suckers above):
1: The Imitation Game (133)
by Graham Moore
What is it?: The story of British WWII cryptographer Alan Turing, who cracked the German Enigma code and later poisoned himself after being criminally prosecuted for being a homosexual.
2: When the Street Lights Go On (84)
by Chris Hutton, Eddie O’Keefe
What is it?: In the early 1980s, a town suffers through the aftermath of a brutal murder of a high school girl and a teacher.
3: Chewie (59)
by Evan Susser, Van Robichaux
What is it?: A satirical behind the scenes look at the making of Star Wars through the eyes of Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca.
4: The Outsider (53)
by Andrew Baldwin
What is it?: In post World War II Japan, an American former prisoner-of-war rises in the yakuza.
5: Father Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses (43)
by Matthew Aldrich
What is it?: A man goes on a three state crime spree with an accomplice, his eleven year old daughter.
6: In the Event of a Moon Disaster (33)
by Mike Jones
What is it?: An alternate telling of the historic Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon that examines what might have happened if the astronauts had crash landed there.
7: Maggie (30)
See Above
8: The Current War (30)
What is it?: Based on the true story of the race between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to develop a practical system of electricity and sell their respective inventions to the country and the world.
9: The End (28)
See Above
10: Beyond the Pale (27)
by Chad Feehan
What is it?: Teenage siblings suspect they’ve been ripped off by the town undertaker, but what they discover is much more sinister than either imagined.
See Above
12: Grace of Monaco (24)
What is it?: Grace Kelly, age 33 and having given up her acting career to focus on being a full time princess, uses her political maneuvering behind the scenes to save Monaco while French Leader Charles de Gaulle and Monaco’s Prince Rainier III are at odds over the principality’s standing as a tax haven.
See Above
14: Bethlehem (23)
See Above
15: The Three Misfortunes of Geppetto (20)
See Above
16: Powell (20)
by Ed Whitworth
What is it?: Based on the true story of Colin Powell questioning the Bush administration leading up to his United Nations presentation where he made the case for going to war with Iraq.
17: The Knoll (19)
by Christopher Cantwell, Christopher Rogers
What is it?: A rookie cop and his potential flame witness JFK gunned down from the grassy knoll on November 22, 1963. Within hours, they’re on the run from the murderers who desperately need them silenced.
18: How to Disappear Completely (17)
by Ed Solomon
What is it?: A child prodigy tries to take control of his life away from his demanding parents.
19: Desperate Hours (17)
by E Nicholas Mariani
What is it?: A small town crippled by WWI and the Spanish flu finds itself facing major moral questions and a brutal invading force when a young girl shows up on a rancher’s doorstep covered in blood.
20: A Many Splintered Thing (17)
by Chris Shafer, Paul Vicknair
What is it?: When a charming heartbreaker finally meets a girl he can’t have, he discovers the true meaning of love by living out other people’s love stories and writing his own.
20: Flarsky (17)
by Daniel Sterling
What is it?: A political journalist courts his old babysitter, who is now the United States secretary of state.
20: Blood Mountain (17)
by Jonathan Stokes
What is it?:After his team is ambushed and killed in Pakistan, a young army ranger must escort the world’s most wanted terrorist over dangerous terrain in order to bring him to justice. While being hunted by both of their enemies, they must find a way to work together in order to survive.
20: Bastards (17)
by Justin Malen
What is it?: Two brothers, raised to believe their biological father died, find out their mother slept with many powerful and famous men in the 1970s, and the siblings hit the road to find their real father.
20: Crazy for the Storm (17)
by Will Fetters
What is it?: The true story of Norman Ollestad’s relationship with his father, who thrust the boy into the world of extreme surfing and competitive downhill skiing at the age of three. But it was that experience that allowed an 11-year old Norman to survive a plane crash amidst a blizzard in the San Gabriel mountains.
Spirit Fingers’ Honorable Mention:
Here are a few I think could be interesting if the right actors and directors came along.
Bridges on the Fort Point Channel (12)
by Chuck Maclean
What is it?: An Irish family in the 1970s, dealing with the loss of their father and the busing of black kids into white neighborhoods, decides to blow up all the bridges in Boston.
Two Night Stand (10)
by Mark Hammer
What is it?: After an extremely regrettable one night stand, two strangers wake up to find themselves snowed in after sleeping through a blizzard that put all of Manhattan on ice. They’re now trapped together in a tiny apartment, forced to get to know each other way more than any one night stand should.
Little White Corvette (10)
by Michael Diliberti
What is it?: A down and out brother and sister go to Miami to sell a duffel bag of cocaine they find in the trunk of a corvette left for them by their dead father.
Bad Words (8)
by Andrew Dodge
What is it?: The bastard child of the organizer of the national spelling bee gets his revenge by finding a loophole and attempting to win the bee as an adult, only to find friendship in a young Indian contestant.
The entire list of screenplays can be found on Deadline’s site.
What do you think? See anything you like? Anything that makes your eyes roll? Tell us in the comments.
