The 15th annual Black List survey was revealed Monday December 16, and it includes 66 un-produced screenplays from up-and-coming literary talent. Results were pooled from a survey of more than 250 film executives, each of whom contributed the names of up to 10 favorite scripts that were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2019 and will not have begun principal photography during this calendar year. This year, scripts had to receive at least six mentions to be included on the Black List.
Since 2005, more than a third of the screenplays included in the annual Black List surveys have become produced films, and often to notoriety — such as “Argo,” “American Hustle,” “Juno,” “The King’s Speech,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Spotlight,” “The Revenants,” “The Descendants,” and “Hell or High Water.” Melina Matsoukas’s 2019 film “Queen & Slim,” written by Lena Waithe with a story co-authored by James Frey, was featured on the 2018 Black List.
Below is the...
Since 2005, more than a third of the screenplays included in the annual Black List surveys have become produced films, and often to notoriety — such as “Argo,” “American Hustle,” “Juno,” “The King’s Speech,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Spotlight,” “The Revenants,” “The Descendants,” and “Hell or High Water.” Melina Matsoukas’s 2019 film “Queen & Slim,” written by Lena Waithe with a story co-authored by James Frey, was featured on the 2018 Black List.
Below is the...
- 12/16/2019
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
There’s a line that our actions can cross when our desire to help others turns into helping ourselves. And it’s often difficult to see when you’re the one falling prey to this hubristic vanity masked as good will. Outsiders don’t have a problem recognizing the shift, though. They only see a charlatan and victim too distraught with pain to discern truth from what they want to hear. This is why there will always be a con artist, mark, and disgruntled bystander catching the trick with a glimmer of respect or sea of rage. And the fork-tongued liar often believes he/she has one card left to play. It’s this desperation that turns a “sure thing” into a crapshoot. Sometimes the predator gets lucky and sometimes he/she becomes the mark.
Which will it be in Trevor White’s A Crooked Somebody? The answer isn’t mine to give.
Which will it be in Trevor White’s A Crooked Somebody? The answer isn’t mine to give.
- 10/3/2018
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
So many VOD-centric dramas call to mind the direct-to-video Blockbuster fodder of yesteryear that it’s actually refreshing to come across one that’s more reminiscent of a cleverly plotted TV-movie from primetime of the 1970s. It’s quite easy to imagine “A Crooked Somebody” airing as an “ABC Movie of the Week” during the Polyester Era with, say, Monte Markham and Robert Culp doing yeoman service in the lead roles and a good 20 minutes or so shaven from the narrative to allow for commercial breaks. On the other hand, it’s even easier to simply enjoy it as a satisfyingly crafted entertainment that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, but does take a few surprising detours from well-trodden genre paths.
Rich Sommer (of TV’s “Mad Men”) hits all the right notes on a scale ranging from smooth operator to desperate prevaricator as Michael Vaughn, a minor league...
Rich Sommer (of TV’s “Mad Men”) hits all the right notes on a scale ranging from smooth operator to desperate prevaricator as Michael Vaughn, a minor league...
- 10/2/2018
- by Joe Leydon
- Variety Film + TV
Rumors are circling the web television and online video scene that HBO's Runaway Box, the online comedy production outfit known for Elevator, Man in the Box and YouTube celeb-laden Hooking Up along with other web series, has been acquired. Sources close to the situation confirm that an acquisition has gone forward, with March 1st being the official transition date. The buyer is said to be a well known company in the web video community. The move follows what we've heard to be a shift towards higher-end digital content for HBO, keeping with the network's strategy as a premium entertainment brand. The comedy veterans, led by Woody Tondorf, Andrew Zilch and Mike Polk at Runaway Box were quick to find a new home however especially after netting an impressive 25 million views for their series, according to video analytics firm TubeMogul. It's not known whether HBOlab director Danila Koverman will be heading...
- 2/23/2009
- by Marc Hustvedt
- Tubefilter.com
Inside the Santa Monica office complex HBO calls home, Woody Tondorf is ready to shoot his new series. Standing in the hallway, he stares into the camera, a Panasonic Handycam set on a tripod. His producer, Danila Koverman, stands inside an office, but her hands are visible on screen as she hands Tondorf a glass bowl filled with scraps of paper.
A handsome 23-year-old wearing jeans and a T-shirt bearing the legend "As Seen on Al-Jazeera", Tondorf fishes out a scrap and reads it to the camera.
"Want to hear two short jokes and a long joke?" he asks as his co-star in the scene, Paul Gulyas, peddles past him on a tricycle that he is about 20 years too old for.
"Joke", Tondorf says. "Joke. Jooooooooke".
Welcome to the set of HBO's newest series effort, "Runaway Joke of the Day." Only don't expect the episode to actually run on the network; it is meant strictly for the Internet. And it may be a stretch to call "Joke" an episode, given that it's over in about 30 seconds.
Absurd riffs like "Joke" are a staple of HBOlab, an unlikely off-the-radar experiment under way for nearly a year now at Time Warner's prize programmer. The TV industry's prime mover is finding its footing in the amorphous world of digital media with an 11-member unit willing to try just about anything online. And if you mistake any of them for the rabble on YouTube, you're excused -- that's where some of the HBOlab staffers were recruited.
Michael Lombardo, president of programming and West Coast operations at HBO, envisions HBOlab tapping a creative sensibility foreign to Hollywood. "There is a whole different group of artists who work in the digital space," he said. "They're not performers in clubs, they're not pitching scripts and they're not channeled into the mainstream with agents."
The anonymity of this endeavor is intentional. HBO believes it can't learn how to make its mark online by trading on its esteemed brand. Which isn't to say HBOlab's online home, RunawayBox.com, is entirely disconnected: The URL is a subtle allusion to the full name behind the HBO acronym, Home Box Office.
"We're trying to 'run away' from the traditional Home Box Office brand," said Koverman, who manages HBOlab. "We don't want to raise false expectations that you'll see the next 'Sex and the City' or 'Sopranos' from us."
Which underlines what's most remarkable about HBOlab: It seems to be the antithesis of everything we've come to know about HBO. The network that built its reputation crafting lavish art-house dramas that attract A-list talent and Emmy Awards is churning out cheap comedy most critics would dismiss.
While every programming move HBO makes continues to generate scrutiny, HBOlab toils in obscurity, although toil doesn't feel like the right word to a visitor to the unit's headquarters in a far corner of HBO's sprawling operation. Comprised mostly of twentysomething male cut-ups, HBOlab seems more like a fraternity that's rented office space in lieu of on-campus housing. Scrawled side by side on one white board are ping-pong win tallies opposite Web site traffic statistics that indicate what little pressure HBOlab is under.
As of July 23, Web traffic monitor Alexa.com had Runawaybox.com as the 646,312th most-visited site on the Internet. That's up from 2.7 millionth place when they started counting on May 14.
"When we hit 500,000, we'll have a celebration," said HBOlab producer Andrew Zilch.
Launched in May, Runawaybox.com is home base for a rotating corps of serialized shortform programming like "Elevator," a daily sketch indicative of HBOlab's modest budget. Each sketch is set within the confines of an elevator, which is not only not shot on a soundstage -- HBOlab has none -- it's not even shot in an actual elevator. The scenes are captured within three wood panels affixed together to resemble an elevator, complete with a metal rail that Tondorf disclosed was not in the budget.
"We stole stuff from the construction people working on a remodeled hallway," he said.
A handsome 23-year-old wearing jeans and a T-shirt bearing the legend "As Seen on Al-Jazeera", Tondorf fishes out a scrap and reads it to the camera.
"Want to hear two short jokes and a long joke?" he asks as his co-star in the scene, Paul Gulyas, peddles past him on a tricycle that he is about 20 years too old for.
"Joke", Tondorf says. "Joke. Jooooooooke".
Welcome to the set of HBO's newest series effort, "Runaway Joke of the Day." Only don't expect the episode to actually run on the network; it is meant strictly for the Internet. And it may be a stretch to call "Joke" an episode, given that it's over in about 30 seconds.
Absurd riffs like "Joke" are a staple of HBOlab, an unlikely off-the-radar experiment under way for nearly a year now at Time Warner's prize programmer. The TV industry's prime mover is finding its footing in the amorphous world of digital media with an 11-member unit willing to try just about anything online. And if you mistake any of them for the rabble on YouTube, you're excused -- that's where some of the HBOlab staffers were recruited.
Michael Lombardo, president of programming and West Coast operations at HBO, envisions HBOlab tapping a creative sensibility foreign to Hollywood. "There is a whole different group of artists who work in the digital space," he said. "They're not performers in clubs, they're not pitching scripts and they're not channeled into the mainstream with agents."
The anonymity of this endeavor is intentional. HBO believes it can't learn how to make its mark online by trading on its esteemed brand. Which isn't to say HBOlab's online home, RunawayBox.com, is entirely disconnected: The URL is a subtle allusion to the full name behind the HBO acronym, Home Box Office.
"We're trying to 'run away' from the traditional Home Box Office brand," said Koverman, who manages HBOlab. "We don't want to raise false expectations that you'll see the next 'Sex and the City' or 'Sopranos' from us."
Which underlines what's most remarkable about HBOlab: It seems to be the antithesis of everything we've come to know about HBO. The network that built its reputation crafting lavish art-house dramas that attract A-list talent and Emmy Awards is churning out cheap comedy most critics would dismiss.
While every programming move HBO makes continues to generate scrutiny, HBOlab toils in obscurity, although toil doesn't feel like the right word to a visitor to the unit's headquarters in a far corner of HBO's sprawling operation. Comprised mostly of twentysomething male cut-ups, HBOlab seems more like a fraternity that's rented office space in lieu of on-campus housing. Scrawled side by side on one white board are ping-pong win tallies opposite Web site traffic statistics that indicate what little pressure HBOlab is under.
As of July 23, Web traffic monitor Alexa.com had Runawaybox.com as the 646,312th most-visited site on the Internet. That's up from 2.7 millionth place when they started counting on May 14.
"When we hit 500,000, we'll have a celebration," said HBOlab producer Andrew Zilch.
Launched in May, Runawaybox.com is home base for a rotating corps of serialized shortform programming like "Elevator," a daily sketch indicative of HBOlab's modest budget. Each sketch is set within the confines of an elevator, which is not only not shot on a soundstage -- HBOlab has none -- it's not even shot in an actual elevator. The scenes are captured within three wood panels affixed together to resemble an elevator, complete with a metal rail that Tondorf disclosed was not in the budget.
"We stole stuff from the construction people working on a remodeled hallway," he said.
- 8/10/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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