The 11th annual Black List (i.e., 2015’s best unproduced screenplays according to 250 film executives) was posted about a week ago. I’d like to read all of them, but I have a list of favorites — Spring Offensive, Blackfriars, Chappaquiddick, 105 And Rising (inspired by Last Days in Vietnam), All The Money In The World, I Believe in America/Francis and the Godfather, Mayday 109. Anyone with PDFs is requested to pass along the following:
SPRING OFFENSIVE by Matthew McInerney-Lacombe / Dr. Liz Scott, a British epidemiologist with the World Health Organization, fights to contain an outbreak of Ebola in Afghanistan’s war torn Helmand province as the Taliban’s assault on allied forces threatens to turn the localized outbreak into a global catastrophe.
STRONGER by John Pollono / The true story of Jeff Bauman, who after losing his legs in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, was an integral part of helping police to locate the suspects. (Now being made with Jake Gyllenhaal starring, David Gordon Green directing.)
BUBBLES by Isaac Adamson / A baby chimp is adopted by 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.
ROCKET by Jeffrey Gelber, Ryan Belenzon / Roger “The Rocket” Clemens, one of the greatest pitchers of all time, has 4672 strikeouts, 354 wins and a record 7 Cy Young awards. This is the story of why he is not in the Hall of Fame.
THE LIBERTINE by Ben Kopit / After the Head of the French National Assembly is placed under house arrest for accusations of sexual assault, he must live in a guarded apartment with his estranged wife until the case comes to a close.
MISS SLOANE by Jonathan “Jonny” Perera / A powerful lobbyist sacrifices her career on Capitol Hill so she can push through an amendment enforcing stricter federal laws regulating guns.
SEPTILLION TO ONE by Adam Perlman, Graham Sack / While a former FBI agent is working in the fraud unit of the Texas State Lottery investigating a woman who has mysteriously hit the lottery jackpot three times, he falls in love.
WHITE BOY RICK by Logan Miller, Noah Miller / True story of Richard Wershe Jr., the only successful white boy gangster/drug kingpin in an African American dominated 1980’s Detroit ghetto.
BOOMTOWN by Matt King / A slick corporate investigator with a closely guarded secret discovers a sinister criminal conspiracy in North Dakota oil boom country.
DREAMLAND by Nicolaas Zwart / With his family’s farm on the precipice of foreclosure, fifteen year old Eugene Evans is determined to capture a fugitive bank robber and collect the bounty on her head. Against all odds, he beats out the FBI and the local police to capture her, only to discover that all may not be what it seems.
ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD by David Scarpa / The story of Getty kidnapping crisis encompassing the Red Brigades, the Italian tabloids and the Vatican.
DO NO HARM by Julia Cox / An ambitious surgeon’s life takes a dangerous turn when she indulges in an affair with a doctor whose god complex challenges her own.
MAYDAY 109 by Samuel V. Franco, Evan Kilgore / Based on actual events, a young John F. Kennedy struggles to save the crew of his PT Boat after it is sunk by a Japanese warship during World War II.
BLACKFRIARS by Chris Bremner / Set around the Blackfriars massacre of 1978, the true story of a Boston police officer and a con man-turned-witness, who become unlikely friends hiding out in Bermuda, ultimately perpetrating a con on the Boston DA they’re tasked to serve.
CIRCLE OF TREASON by Anna Waterhouse, Joe Shrapnel / Based on the book “Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and The Men He Betrayed” written by Sandra Grimes & Jeanne Vertefeuille. When two women in the CIA suspect there is a mole working there, they have to overcome the institution’s hierarchy and chauvinism to bring down the traitor.
CHAPPAQUIDDICK by Taylor Allen, Andrew Logan / A historically factual look at what really happened when Ted Kennedy drove off the road into a Martha’s Vineyard bay with Mary Jo Kopechne in the car.
HUNTING EICHMANN by Matthew Orton / The thrilling capture of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann by a secret Mossad team in South America.
A SPECK IN THE SEA by Jeff Pope / Based on the article “A Speck in the Sea” by Paul Tough. The true story of the rescue of lobster fisherman John Aldridge who fell into the ocean in the middle of the night on July 24th, forty miles off Montauk with no life vest and no way to signal where he was.
OUR WEEK WITH WALLER by Evan Mirzai, Shea Mirzai / After getting laid off, two Americans cash in their vacation pay and head to Spain where their paths collide with one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.
MILITIA by Henry Dunham / After a shooting on a police funeral by a suspected militia member, a recluse ex-cop and fellow militia man must interrogate the suspected gunmen in his own militia before copycat attacks start a nationwide war between cops and militias.
UNTITLED LARRY HILLBLOM PROJECT by Matt Portenoy / The strange-yet-true story of the battle over the estate of Larry Lee Hillblom, billionaire founder of DHL.
ATLANTIC WALL by Zach Dean / A lone American paratrooper, stranded behind enemy lines hours before D-Day, is tasked with delivering intelligence critical to the outcome of the war and compelled to fulfill a promise to protect the young son of a murdered ally.
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I BELIEVE IN AMERICA by Terry Clyne / A behind-the-scenes look at the making of THE GODFATHER, revealing that the creative forces behind one of the finest American films ever made were all as cunning and ruthless as the mobsters portrayed in Mario Puzo’s bestseller, and FRANCIS AND THE GODFATHER by Andrew Farotte / Facing financial ruin, auteur filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is forced to direct the adaptation of Mario Puzo’s pulp novel The Godfather, pitting him against legendary mega-producer Robert Evans.
105 AND RISING by Andrew Cypiot / Amid the chaos of a fILling nation on April 29, 1975, the objective was clear: safely evacuate all remaining Americans from Saigon. But to Major Jim Kean and Ambassador Graham Martin, the moment represented something else: the final opportunity to uphold promises and obligations to the people of South Vietnam.
CROOK COUNTY by Gita Pullapilly, Aron Gaudet / A whistleblower’s harrowing journey into an undercover FBI operation in 1980’s Cook County, Illinois, sending him toe-to-toe with corrupt judges, hustling defense attorneys, and Chicago mobsters; and ultimately resulting in the largest number of convictions of government officials in the history of the United States.
