Until today, the Black List was the name of a yearly email sent out by Franklin Leonard, who culled through piles of new movie scripts and sent out the best ones to his industry buddies. Now Leonard plans to open up the venture to the public via subscription website. Well, sort of. You have to be in the business of show to get an invitation to the site, then pay 20 bucks a month to look at these “gems”. Users vote on which scripts they like the best, theoretically giving producers an idea of the next Little Miss Sunshine or Juno. As Leonard tells the Wall Street Journal, “Inclusion on the Black List… signals to industry insiders that a given project deserves a second look or brings a script to the attention of people who are in a position to produce it.” Sounds like a good idea, but critics worry that the new, real-time ranking system may make it harder to pick the good from the bad. I mean it’s pretty easy to generate short-term buzz on a so-so movie, just ask Matt Damon.
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