Analysis: 2022 Black List

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

The 2022 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 74 screenplays on the 2022 Black List (There were 73 screenplays on the 2021 Black List).
• Over 300 film executives at major financiers and production companies voted on the 2022 Black List.
• 9% of the scripts on the 2022 Black List have a financier attached (16% on 2021 Black List)
• 59% of the scripts on 2022 Black List have a producer attached (78% on the 2021 Black List)
• 64% of the scripts on the 2022 Black List are repped by agents
• 88% of the scripts on the 2022 Black List are repped by managers

The good folks at the Black List have provided some interesting notes:

Success of writers from the Black List platform on the 2022 Black Lis

• PURE by Catherine Schetina is the #1 script on the 2022 Black List.
• ”Two scripts on the 2022 Black List were written by Black List Lab alumni:
   — OH THE HUMANITY by Gillian Weeks (BL x WIF Episodic Lab ‘19)
   — JAMBUSTERS by Filipe Coutinho (BL Feature Lab ‘20)
• Cambron Clark, screenwriter of MADDEN, currently lives in Arkansas. His script was first discovered by Oscar nominated producer Todd Black, who is now attached to produce at Amazon, on the Black List website.
• Laura Kosann, screenwriter of SEMPER MATERNUS (who won the 2021 Nicholl Fellowship and had two scripts on the 2021 Black List), was recently awarded a $100K short film production grant as a part of the Be Unstoppable Film Project, a partnership between UPS and The Black List.

Here are some trends in this year’s Black List.

Athletes on the Brink — Tennis, Football, Cycling, Swimming

• BREAK POINT by Zachary Joel Johnson
  Courted by colleges and sponsors alike, a burnt-out tennis prodigy fights to maintain dominance against her Academy rival as she hurtles toward the existential decision of turning Pro — a choice that will force her to double down on her dream or walk away from the future she’s fought for.
• COURT 17 by Elad Ziv
  An over-the-hill tennis pro, trying to salvage her career, finds herself stuck playing the first round of the US Open over and over again against one of the top players in the world. The only way to stop the loop is to win the match, a seemingly impossible task due to how overmatched she is.
• GOAT by Skip Bronkie, Zack Akers
  A promising first-round draft pick is invited to train at the private compound of the team’s legendary but aging quarterback. Over one week, the rising star witnesses the horrific lengths his hero will go to to stay at the top of his game.
• GOING FOR TWO by Kevin Arnowitz
  An openly gay NFL quarterback finds his meticulously planned life upended on and off the field when he falls for a charming high school teacher during the most important season of his career.
• PUMPING BLACK by Haley Bartels
  A desperate cyclist and his charismatic new team doctor concoct a dangerous training program in order to win the Tour de France. But as the race progresses and jealous teammates, suspicious authorities, and the racer’s own paranoia close in, they must take increasingly dark measures to protect both his secret and his lead.
• RESURFACED by Alyssa Ross
  After Michael Phelps cements his status as the greatest Olympian of all time, he struggles to build a life and identity for himself outside the pool.

Hollywood Plays Itself

• IT’S A WONDERFUL STORY by Alexandra Tran
  In the aftermath of WWII, a traumatized Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart use the making of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE to attempt to find a way back to normalcy.
• LET’S GO AGAIN by Colin Bannon
  When her domineering director makes her film the same scene 148 times on the final night of an exhausting shoot, actress Annie Long must fight to keep her own sanity as she tries to decipher what is real, and what is part of his twisted game.
• MATCH CUT by Will Lowell
  While filming on location in Rome, a movie stuntman is mistaken for
  an infamous assassin, leading to 48 hours of madness as he’s chased through the city by both gangsters and police.
• MEGA ACTION HIT by Sean Tidwell
  After Hollywood’s leading action star hits his head on set and wakes up thinking he’s a real-life action hero, he embarks on an international mission to track down a real stolen nuke before it’s too late.
• THE PACK by Rose Gilroy
  A group of documentarians braves the remote wilderness of Alaska in
  an effort to save a nearly extinct species of wolves. When the crew is brought back together at a prestigious awards ceremony, tensions flare as a deadly truth threatens to unravel their work. The team lived through the harsh elements of the wild but will a secret they share survive the night?

Political Insanity

• JERRY! by Greg Roque
  One man ran what was declared to be the worst TV show of all-time.
  Responsible for the degradation of American society. All while topping Oprah in the ratings. This is the over the top, insane true story of how Jerry Springer went from ambitious young attorney, to the Mayor of Cincinnati, to the undisputed King of Trash TV. And along the way, accidentally helping to create the world we live in today.
• POPULAR by Marley Schneier
  GOP strategist Lee Atwater won the presidency for George H.W. Bush in 1988, and his campaign changed politics forever — and gave him the worst reputation in America. Now, Lee is on his deathbed, and he needs to tell God his side of the story… before it’s too late.
• TOTAL LANDSCAPING by Woody Bess
  A day in the life of the employees of Four Seasons Total Landscaping and its neighboring businesses on November 7th, 2020, the day an average, working-class strip mall in East Philadelphia became the focal point of the most divisive presidential election in American History.

The Sisterhood of Song

• IT’S BRITNEY, BITCH by Cerina Aragones
  A dramatic and musical character study of global pop icon Britney Spears, leading up to her very public unraveling at a Tarzana hair salon, and her recent courtroom victory to win her freedom back.
• DUMB BLONDE by Lou Howe, Todd Bartels
  The origin story of Dolly Parton, following her rise through the male-dominated music scene of late 1960s Nashville.

A Mighty Powerful New Voice in Screenwriting

Amy Jo Johnson — who played the original Pink Power Ranger and directed TAMMY’S ALWAYS DYING (2019) — has a script on the 2022 Black List:

WHAT WE BECOME
A successful author/wife/mother plans a trip to a bucolic island to crack her next book and finds herself in a surprising situation.

Scripts By Agency

CAA — 14 
Verve — 11 
UTA — 8 
Gersh — 6 
WME — 4 
APA — 3 
Paradigm — 1

Scripts By Management Company

Bellevue Productions — 11 
Grandview — 6 
Writ Large — 6 
Rain — 5.5 
Entertainment 360–5 
Sugar23–4 
Mosaic — 3.5 
Echo Lake Entertainment — 3 
Heroes and Villains Entertainment — 3 
Brillstein Entertainment Partners — 2 
Housefire Management — 2 
Anonymous Content — 1 
Canopy Media Partners — 1 
Circle of Confusion — 1 
Empirical Evidence — 1 
Epicenter — 1 
Exile Entertainment — 1 
Fourth Wall — 1 
The Gotham Group — 1 
Gramercy Park Entertainment — 1 
Navigation Media Group — 1 
REJ Entertainment — 1 
Traction Entertainment — 1 
Untitled Entertainment — 1 
Zero Gravity Entertainment — 1

Finally this: 4 scripts (Better Luck Next Time, Gather the Ashes, Himbo, Ravenswood) were not repped by either an agency or management company. Here are some tweets from one of those writers:

Tomorrow, I’m going to feature another writer who landed a script on the Black List without representation.

For Go Into The Story analyses of previous Black Lists:

2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021

As always, I encourage people to read as many of these Black List scripts as possible. These 74 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.

I am already setting up interviews with several 2022 Black List writers. You may look for those beginning in January 2023.

To read Go Into The Story interviews with 65 Black List writers, go here.

Don’t forget the 2022 Black List Word Cloud Logline Challenge! It’s fun and you can win 1 free script read + 1 month script hosting via the Black List website, plus 1 of my online Core classes I’ll be teaching in 2023.