WEBVTT

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This weekend,

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tens of millions of people
in the United States

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and tens of millions more
around the world,

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in Columbus, Georgia, in Cardiff, Wales,

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in Chongqing, China, in Chennai, India

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will leave their homes,

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they'll get in their cars
or they'll take public transportation

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or they will carry themselves by foot,

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and they'll step into a room

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and sit down next to someone
they don't know

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or maybe someone they do,

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and the lights will go down
and they'll watch a movie.

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They'll watch movies
about aliens or robots,

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or robot aliens or regular people.

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But they will all be movies
about what it means to be human.

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Millions will feel awe or fear,

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millions will laugh and millions will cry.

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And then the lights will come back on,

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and they'll reemerge into the world
they knew several hours prior.

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And millions of people
will look at the world

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a little bit differently
than they did when they went in.

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Like going to temple
or a mosque or a church,

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or any other religious institution,

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movie-going is, in many ways,
a sacred ritual.

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Repeated week after week after week.

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I'll be there this weekend,

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just like I was on most weekends
between the years of 1996 and 1990,

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at the multiplex, near the shopping mall

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about five miles from my childhood home
in Columbus, Georgia.

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The funny thing is
that somewhere between then and now,

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I accidentally changed
part of the conversation

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about which of those movies get made.

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So, the story actually begins in 2005,
in an office high above Sunset Boulevard,

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where I was a junior executive

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at Leonardo DiCaprio's
production company Appian Way.

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And for those of you who aren't familiar
with how the film industry works,

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it basically means that I was
one of a few people behind the person

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who produces the movie for the people
behind and in front of the camera,

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whose names you will better
recognize than mine.

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Essentially, you're an assistant movie
producer who does the unglamorous work

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that goes into the creative aspect
of producing a movie.

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You make lists of writers
and directors and actors

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who might be right for movies
that you want to will into existence;

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you meet with many of them
and their representatives,

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hoping to curry favor
for some future date.

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And you read, a lot.

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You read novels that might become movies,

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you read comic books
that might become movies,

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you read articles
that might become movies,

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you read scripts that might become movies.

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And you read scripts from writers
that might write the adaptations

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of the novels, of the comic books,
of the articles,

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and might rewrite the scripts
that you're already working on.

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All this in the hope of finding
the next big thing

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or the next big writer
who can deliver something

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that can make you and your company
the next big thing.

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So in 2005, I was a development executive
at Leonardo's production company.

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I got a phone call
from the representative of a screenwriter

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that began pretty much the way
all of those conversations did:

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"I've got Leo's next movie."

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Now in this movie,
that his client had written,

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Leo would play an oil industry lobbyist

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whose girlfriend, a local meteorologist,
threatens to leave him

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because his work contributes
to global warming.

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And this is a situation
that's been brought to a head

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by the fact that there's a hurricane
forming in the Atlantic

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that's threatening to do Maria-like damage
from Maine to Myrtle Beach.

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Leo, very sad about
this impending break up,

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does a little more research
about the hurricane

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and discovers that in its path
across the Atlantic,

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it will pass over a long-dormant,
though now active volcano

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that will spew toxic ash into its eye

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that will presumably be whipped
into some sort of chemical weapon

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that will destroy the world.

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(Laughter)

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It was at that point that I asked him,

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"So are you basically pitching me
'Leo versus the toxic superstorm

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that will destroy humanity?'"

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And he responded by saying,

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"Well, when you say it like that,
it sounds ridiculous."

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And I'm embarrassed to admit
that I had the guy send me the script,

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and I read 30 pages before I was sure
that it was as bad as I thought it was.

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Now, "Superstorm"
is certainly an extreme example,

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but it's also not an unusual one.

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And unfortunately, most scripts
aren't as easy to dismiss as that one.

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For example, a comedy
about a high school senior,

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who, when faced
with an unplanned pregnancy,

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makes an unusual decision
regarding her unborn child.

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That's obviously "Juno."

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Two hundred and thirty million
at the worldwide box office,

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four Oscar nominations, one win.

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How about a Mumbai teen
who grew up in the slums

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wants to become a contestant
on the Indian version

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of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"?

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That's an easy one --
"Slumdog Millionaire."

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Three hundred seventy-seven
million worldwide,

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10 Oscar nominations and eight wins.

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A chimpanzee tells his story

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of living with the legendary pop star
Michael Jackson.

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Anyone?

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(Laughter)

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It's a trick question.

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But it is a script called "Bubbles,"

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that is going to be directed
by Taika Waititi,

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the director of "Thor: Ragnarok."

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So, a large part of your job
as a development executive

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is to separate the "Superstorms"
from the "Slumdog Millionaires,"

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and slightly more generally,
the writers who write "Superstorm"

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from the writers who can write
"Slumdog Millionaire."

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And the easiest way to do this, obviously,
is to read all of the scripts,

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but that's, frankly, impossible.

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A good rule of thumb
is that the Writers Guild of America

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registers about 50,000 new pieces
of material every year,

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and most of them are screenplays.

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Of those, a reasonable estimate
is about 5,000 of them

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make it through various filters,
agencies, management companies,

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screenplay compositions and the like,

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and are read by someone
at the production company

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or major studio level.

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And they're trying to decide
whether they can become

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one of the 300-and-dropping movies
that are released by the major studios

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or their sub-brands each year.

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I've described it before

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as being a little bit like walking
into a members-only bookstore

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where the entire inventory
is just organized haphazardly,

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and every book has the same,
nondescript cover.

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Your job is to enter that bookstore

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and not come back until you've found
the best and most profitable books there.

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It's anarchic and gleefully opaque.

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And everyone has their method
to address these problems.

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You know, most rely on the major agencies

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and they just assume
that if there's great talent in the world,

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they've already found
their way to the agencies,

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regardless of the structural barriers
that actually exist

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to get into the agencies
in the first place.

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Others also constantly compare
notes among themselves

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about what they've read and what's good,

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and they just hope that their cohort group
is the best, most wired

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and has the best taste in town.

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And others try to read everything,
but that's, again, impossible.

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If you're reading
500 screenplays in a year,

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you are reading a lot.

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And it's still only a small percentage
of what's out there.

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Fundamentally, it's triage.

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And when you're in triage,
you tend to default to conventional wisdom

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about what works and what doesn't.

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That a comedy about a young woman
dealing with reproductive reality

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can't sell.

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That the story of an Indian teenager
isn't viable in the domestic marketplace

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or anywhere else in the world
outside of India.

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That the only source of viable movies
is a very narrow groups of writers

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who have already found their way
to living and working in Hollywood,

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who already have the best
representation in the business,

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and are writing a very narrow
band of stories.

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And I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit,
that that's where I found myself in 2005.

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Sitting in that office
above Sunset Boulevard,

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staring down that metaphorical
anonymized bookstore,

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and having read nothing
but bad scripts for months.

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And I took this to mean one of two things:

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either A: I was not very good at my job,

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which was, ostensibly,
finding good scripts,

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or B: reading bad scripts was the job.

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In which case, my mother's
weekly phone calls,

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asking me if my law school
entrance exam scores were still valid

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was something I should probably
pay more attention to.

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What I also knew

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was that I was about to go
on vacation for two weeks,

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and as bad as reading bad scripts is
when it is your job,

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it's even more painful on vacation.

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So I had to do something.

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So late one night
at my office, I made a list

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of everyone that I had had breakfast,
lunch, dinner or drinks with

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that had jobs similar to mine,
and I sent them an anonymous email.

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And I made a very simple request.

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Send me a list of up to 10
of your favorite screenplays

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that meet three criteria.

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One: you love the screenplay,

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two: the filmed version of that screenplay
will not be in theaters

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by the end of that calendar year,

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and three: you found out
about the screenplay this year.

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This was not an appeal for the scripts
that would be the next great blockbuster,

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not an appeal for the scripts
that will win the Academy Award,

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they didn't need to be scripts
that their bosses loved

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or that their studio wanted to make.

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It was very simply an opportunity
for people to speak their minds

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about what they loved,

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which, in this world,
is increasingly rare.

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Now, almost all of the 75 people
I emailed anonymously responded.

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And then two dozen other people
actually emailed to participate

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to this anonymous email address,

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but I confirmed that they did in fact
have the jobs they claimed to have.

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And I then compiled the votes
into a spreadsheet,

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ran a pivot table,
output it to PowerPoint,

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and the night before I left for vacation,

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I slapped a quasi subversive name on it

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and emailed it back
from that anonymous email address

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to everyone who voted.

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The Black List.

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A tribute to those who lost their careers
during the anti-communist hysteria

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of the 1940s and 50s,

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and a conscious inversion of the notion

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that black somehow
had a negative connotation.

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After arriving in Mexico,
I pulled out a chair by the pool,

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started reading these scripts
and found, to my shock and joy,

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that most of them
were actually quite good.

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Mission accomplished.

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What I didn't and couldn't have expected

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was what happened next.

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About a week into my time on vacation,

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I stopped by the hotel's
business center to check my email.

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This was a pre-iPhone world, after all.

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And found that this list
that I had created anonymously

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had been forwarded back to me
several dozen times,

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at my personal email address.

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Everyone was sharing this list of scripts
that everyone had said that they loved,

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reading them and then
loving them themselves.

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And my first reaction,
that I can't actually say here,

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but will describe it as fear,

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the idea of surveying people
about their scripts

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was certainly not a novel or a genius one.

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Surely, there was some unwritten
Hollywood rule of omertà

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that had guided people
away from doing that before

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that I was simply too naive to understand,
it being so early in my career.

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I was sure I was going to get fired,

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and so I decided that day
that A: I would never tell anybody

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that I had done this,

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and B: I would never do it again.

NOTE Paragraph

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Then, six months later,
something even more bizarre happened.

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I was in my office, on Sunset,

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and got a phone call
from another writer's agent.

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The call began very similarly
to the call about "Superstorm":

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"I've got Leo's next movie."

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Now, that's not the interesting part.

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The interesting part
was the way the call ended.

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Because this agent
then told me, and I quote,

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"Don't tell anybody, but I have it
on really good authority

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this is going to be the number one script
on next year's Black List."

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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Yeah.

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Suffice it to say, I was dumbfounded.

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Here was an agent, using the Black List,
this thing that I had made anonymously

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and decided to never make again,

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to sell his client to me.

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To suggest that the script had merit,

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based solely on the possibility of being
included on a list of beloved screenplays.

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After the call ended, I sat in my office,
sort of staring out the window,

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alternating between shock
and general giddiness.

NOTE Paragraph

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And then I realized that this thing
that I had created

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had a lot more value

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than just me finding good screenplays
to read over the holidays.

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And so I did it again the next year --

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and the "LA Times" had outed me
as the person who had created it --

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and the year after that,

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and the year after that --
I've done it every year since 2005.

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And the results have been fascinating,

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because, unapologetic lying aside,
this agent was exactly right.

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This list was evidence, to many people,
of a script's value,

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and that a great script had greater value

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that, I think, a lot of people
had previously anticipated.

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Very quickly, the writers
whose scripts were on that list

00:11:50.373 --> 00:11:51.910
started getting jobs,

00:11:51.934 --> 00:11:53.967
those scripts started getting made,

00:11:53.991 --> 00:11:55.406
and the scripts that got made

00:11:55.430 --> 00:11:57.797
were often the ones
that violated the assumptions

00:11:57.821 --> 00:11:59.720
about what worked and what didn't.

00:11:59.744 --> 00:12:03.069
They were scripts like "Juno"
and "Little Miss Sunshine"

00:12:03.093 --> 00:12:05.641
and "The Queen" and "The King's Speech"

00:12:05.665 --> 00:12:06.815
and "Spotlight."

00:12:07.212 --> 00:12:09.037
And yes, "Slumdog Millionaire."

00:12:09.061 --> 00:12:12.189
And even an upcoming movie
about Michael Jackson's chimpanzee.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:13.522 --> 00:12:16.625
Now, I think it's really important
that I pause here for a second

00:12:16.649 --> 00:12:20.094
and say that I can't take credit
for the success of any of those movies.

00:12:20.118 --> 00:12:24.118
I didn't write them, I didn't direct them,
I didn't produce them, I didn't gaff them,

00:12:24.142 --> 00:12:26.426
I didn't make food and craft service --

00:12:26.450 --> 00:12:28.252
we all know how important that is.

00:12:28.276 --> 00:12:30.967
The credit for those movies,
the credit for that success,

00:12:30.991 --> 00:12:33.180
goes to the people who made the films.

00:12:33.204 --> 00:12:35.863
What I did was change
the way people looked at them.

00:12:35.887 --> 00:12:39.753
Accidentally, I asked
if the conventional wisdom was correct.

00:12:40.657 --> 00:12:44.045
And certainly, there are movies
on that list that would have gotten made

00:12:44.069 --> 00:12:45.237
without the Black List,

00:12:45.261 --> 00:12:47.649
but there are many
that definitely would not have.

00:12:47.673 --> 00:12:50.716
And at a minimum, we've catalyzed
a lot of them into production,

00:12:50.730 --> 00:12:52.339
and I think that's worth noting.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:52.363 --> 00:12:55.036
There have been about 1,000
screenplays on the Black List

00:12:55.060 --> 00:12:56.926
since its inception in 2005.

00:12:56.950 --> 00:12:59.418
About 325 have been produced.

00:12:59.950 --> 00:13:02.958
They've been nominated
for 300 Academy Awards,

00:13:02.982 --> 00:13:04.132
they've won 50.

00:13:04.934 --> 00:13:08.688
Four of the last nine Best Pictures
have gone to scripts from the Black List,

00:13:08.712 --> 00:13:12.513
and 10 of the last 20 screenplay Oscars
have gone to scripts from the Black List.

00:13:12.839 --> 00:13:15.141
All told, they've made
about 25 billion dollars

00:13:15.165 --> 00:13:16.750
in worldwide box office,

00:13:16.774 --> 00:13:19.473
which means that hundreds
of millions of people

00:13:19.497 --> 00:13:21.925
have seen these films
when they leave their homes,

00:13:21.949 --> 00:13:25.194
and sit next to someone they don't know
and the lights go down.

00:13:25.871 --> 00:13:28.643
And that's to say nothing
of post-theatrical environments

00:13:28.667 --> 00:13:31.516
like DVD, streaming and,
let's be honest, illegal downloads.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:32.482 --> 00:13:36.418
Five years ago today, October 15,

00:13:36.442 --> 00:13:39.061
my business partner and I
doubled down on this notion

00:13:39.085 --> 00:13:43.482
that screenwriting talent
was not where we expected to find it,

00:13:43.506 --> 00:13:46.537
and we launched a website
that would allow anybody on earth

00:13:46.561 --> 00:13:48.743
who had written
an English-language screenplay

00:13:48.767 --> 00:13:50.783
to upload their script, have it evaluated,

00:13:50.807 --> 00:13:54.108
and make it available to thousands
of film-industry professionals.

00:13:54.132 --> 00:13:56.910
And I'm pleased to say,
in the five years since its launch,

00:13:56.934 --> 00:13:58.529
we've largely proved that thesis.

00:13:58.553 --> 00:14:01.799
Hundreds of writers from across the world
have found representation,

00:14:01.823 --> 00:14:03.633
have had their work optioned or sold.

00:14:03.657 --> 00:14:06.585
Seven have even seen their films made
in the last three years,

00:14:06.609 --> 00:14:08.252
including the film "Nightingale,"

00:14:08.276 --> 00:14:10.688
the story of a war veteran's
psychological decline,

00:14:10.712 --> 00:14:13.379
in which David Oyelowo's face
is the only one on screen

00:14:13.403 --> 00:14:15.101
for the film's 90-minute duration.

00:14:15.125 --> 00:14:18.407
It was nominated for a Golden Globe
and two Emmy Awards.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:18.431 --> 00:14:20.923
It's also kind of cool
that more than a dozen writers

00:14:20.947 --> 00:14:22.661
who were discovered on the website

00:14:22.685 --> 00:14:24.867
have ended up
on this end-of-year annual list,

00:14:24.891 --> 00:14:27.327
including two of the last three
number one writers.

00:14:27.351 --> 00:14:31.373
Simply put, the conventional wisdom
about screenwriting merit --

00:14:31.397 --> 00:14:34.960
where it was and where it could be found,

00:14:34.984 --> 00:14:36.349
was wrong.

00:14:36.373 --> 00:14:39.278
And this is notable,
because as I mentioned before,

00:14:39.302 --> 00:14:42.577
in the triage of finding
movies to make and making them,

00:14:42.601 --> 00:14:45.450
there's a lot of relying
on conventional wisdom.

00:14:46.220 --> 00:14:48.141
And that conventional wisdom,

00:14:48.165 --> 00:14:50.347
maybe, just maybe,

00:14:50.371 --> 00:14:52.632
might be wrong
to even greater consequence.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:53.688 --> 00:14:56.220
Films about black people
don't sell overseas.

00:14:57.117 --> 00:14:59.014
Female-driven action movies don't work,

00:14:59.038 --> 00:15:02.966
because women will see themselves in men,
but men won't see themselves in women.

00:15:04.188 --> 00:15:07.355
That no one wants to see movies
about women over 40.

00:15:07.379 --> 00:15:11.474
That our onscreen heroes have to conform
to a very narrow idea about beauty

00:15:11.498 --> 00:15:13.236
that we consider conventional.

00:15:14.291 --> 00:15:17.307
What does that mean when those images
are projected 30 feet high

00:15:17.331 --> 00:15:18.578
and the lights go down,

00:15:18.602 --> 00:15:21.307
for a kid that looks like me
in Columbus, Georgia?

00:15:21.331 --> 00:15:23.731
Or a Muslim girl in Cardiff, Wales?

00:15:24.117 --> 00:15:25.717
Or a gay kid in Chennai?

00:15:26.482 --> 00:15:29.181
What does it mean for how we see ourselves

00:15:29.205 --> 00:15:32.450
and how we see the world
and for how the world sees us?

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:35.308 --> 00:15:37.807
We live in very strange times.

00:15:38.413 --> 00:15:42.200
And I think for the most part,
we all live in a state of constant triage.

00:15:42.224 --> 00:15:44.574
There's just too much information,

00:15:44.598 --> 00:15:46.664
too much stuff to contend with.

00:15:46.996 --> 00:15:50.495
And so as a rule, we tend
to default to conventional wisdom.

00:15:51.292 --> 00:15:54.811
And I think it's important
that we ask ourselves, constantly,

00:15:54.835 --> 00:15:59.582
how much of that conventional wisdom
is all convention and no wisdom?

00:16:00.441 --> 00:16:01.591
And at what cost?

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:02.079 --> 00:16:03.231
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:03.255 --> 00:16:06.992
(Applause)