A slasher film set at Camp David where a young George W. Bush is hunted by a masked killer. A group of friends stuck overnight in an IKEA, unwittingly at the center of two rival crime syndicates. Audrey Hepburn hunting Nazis on her days off from filming “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
These are some of the magical loglines from this year’s annual Black List, a ranking of the most liked scripts in Hollywood that have not yet been made into films. Compiled annually by a group led by Franklin Leonard, a recipient of Gotham tribute award this year, Variety waits with childlike anticipation each year to see which scripts film executives have really been buzzing over — but haven’t had the budget or the chutzpah to put into production just yet.
The Black List has yielded some major awards contenders and iconic films, including “Black Swan,” “Argo” and “The King’s Speech.” The ranking is based on the amount of times a script is mentioned by the Black List’s sample pool, made up of 500 film industry pros.
This year, for the first time, a screenwriter has topped the list for a second year in a row. The honor goes to Travis Braun, who earns the number one slot in 2024 with “One Night Only.” The story — about two strangers who scramble to find people to sleep with on the one night per year that premarital sex is legal — was mentioned 60 times. Braun, signed with UTA and Echo Lake Management, also earned the top spot in 2023 with “Bad Boy,” about a rescue dog who suspects his loving new owner is a serial killer.
Coming in at second most popular is Marie Østerbye’s “Playdate,” a psychological thriller about a woman who unwittingly confronts her childhood bully at a playdate for their daughters. Natan Dotan’s “Alignment” comes in at third, about an AI company board member whose conscience stands between the greed of his colleagues and a global catastrophe.
What’s fascinating about The Black List is its economy — in both genre, styles and budget levels for the scripts that inevitably make it. Aaron Karo’s “Tickle-Me-Elmo” is a script about the toy that saved Sesame Street, shocked Wall Street and delighted the nation. Alyson Weaver Nicholas’ “Little Black Dress” imagines screen icon Hepburn as a CIA recruit chasing Nazis between takes. Lou Howe and Todd Bartels’ “Tony” is a hero origin story about the late food star Anthony Bourdain, imagining his early days as a dishwasher in Provincetown and the fire it lit within him.
For 2024, The Black List went with a stark cover featuring only a quote from the late “Harry Potter” franchise star Alan Rickman, which contains a subtle swipe at AI:
“And it’s a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.”
There’s a lot to love on the full list, including some projects that feel ripped from the headlines. While the world still swoons over “Wicked,” the Black List has something of an antidote — the story of a young star trying to survive the making of the original Hollywood classic.
Dan Woodward’s “The Wrong Side of the Rainbow” was Inspired by the disastrous making of “The Wizard of OZ.” It follows young actress Maggie Hamilton, fighting to keep her role as the Wicked Witch of the West while resisting the forces around her stifling Judy Garland’s childhood.
Likewise, Matt Bailey’s “King of the Freshmen” charts the “glittering ascent” of Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries — only to see his legacy unravel as a scandal of exploitation and power threatens to expose the dangerous lengths he went to in their pursuit of perfection. Jeffries and two top associates were arrested in October on charges of sex trafficking and interstate prostitution.
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