Analysis: 2020 Black List
By: Scott Myers
Tags: Screenwriting, Hollywood, Screenplay, Business, Writing

A deep dive into the scripts named to this year’s annual Black List.

The 2020 Black List rolled out Monday — you can find titles, writers and loglines for all of the selected scripts here — and as promised, today we have some statistics and analysis for you.

First some interesting stats about this year’s Black List:

There are 80 screenplays on the 2020 Black List (There were 66 screenplays on the 2019 Black List). I believe this is the highest number of screenplays on an annual Black List which is surprising because the minimum number of mentions this year is 7, where in year’s past, it has more typically been 6.

375 working film executives at major Hollywood financiers and production companies contributed to the 2020 Black List, compared to 250+ in 2019.

26% of the scripts on the 2020 Black List have a financier attached (30% on 2019 Black List)

74% of the scripts on 2019 Black List have a producer attached (68% on the 2019 Black List)

37.5% of this year’s Black List scripts were written or co-written by women. Note the trendline from 2007 to present for women written scripts on the Black List.

Drilling down into the scripts, here are some interesting notes:

Unlike the previous several years where Biopics had a significant presence on the Black List, this year there are only 6 (Bikram, Enemies Within, Excelsior, Gusher, Plush, and Viceland). Additionally, there are 14 historically based scripts. This lends credence to conversations I’ve had this year agents and managers that original stories are making a comeback.

There are 4 stories set in outer space: Bring Me Back, Generation Leap, I.S.S., and If You Were the Last.

There are 3 scripts featuring airplane storylines: Fight or Flight, Flight Risk, A Single Point of Failure.

There are 3 stories featuring transgender lead characters: Good Chance, Occupied, What If?

There are 3 scripts featuring uncle-nephew relationships: The Black Belt, Saturday Night Ghost Club, Uncle Wick.

Finally, Cosmic Sunday continues in the tradition of ‘reliving the same day’ story conceits including Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Palm Springs, Happy Death Day, and the TV series Russian Doll.

Scripts By Agency

UTA 17

Verve 9

WME 5

CAA 4

Gersh 4

Paradigm 3

APA 1

Kazarian, Spencer & Associates 1

Rothman, Brecher, Ehrich, Livingston 1

Scripts By Management Company

Kaplan/Perrone 9

Grandview 8.5

Bellevue Entertainment 5

Management 360 5

Writ Large 5

Brillstein Entertainment Partners 4

Fourth Wall 3

3 Arts Entertainment 3

Heroes & Villains Entertainment 3

Epicenter 2

Fourward 2

Good Fear 2

Gotham Group 2

Lit Entertainment 2

MXN Entertainment 2

Zero Gravity 2

Anonymous Content 1

Calvary Media 1

Echo Lake 1

Fusion 1

Hopscotch Partners 1

Jen Au Management 1

Lee Stobby 1

M88 1

Management SGC 1

Mutiny 1

Syndicate Entertainment 1

Vision Entertainment 1

Haven Entertainment 0.5

For Go Into The Story analyses of previous Black Lists:

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

As always, I encourage people to read as many of these Black List scripts as possible. These 80 scripts represent, as best as we can know at this moment in time, where development execs’ heads are at and most importantly what types of stories resonate with them.

How to find the scripts? Hint: r/Screenwriting.