Thursday, December 13, 2007




AFTERTHOUGHTS (32)
MORE BLACK LIST 2007 BITS

32.1 If you haven’t yet, please check out Afterthoughts (30) & (31) in the Archive, so all this Black List stuff will make sense.

Now, for the record, the top 5 Black List 2007 scripts are:

Recount by Danny Strong (44 mentions)
“A behind-the-scenes view of the 2000 presidential election and the scandal that ensued in the weeks following.”

Farragut North by Beau Willimon (43 mentions)
“A young, idealistic communications director for a fast-rising politician falls prey to backstabbing and trickery while working on a presidential campaign.”

Passengers by Jon Spaihts (38 mentions)
See Afterthoughts (31).

Infiltrator by Josh Zeturner (35 mentions)
“British intelligence launched a campaign to undermine the Irish Republican Army by planting spies there in high level positions. The program helped the British upend much of the terrorist activity planned by the IRA, but at a high price.”

and Selma by Paul Webb (29 mentions)
“The story of Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaign to convince President Lyndon Johnson to enact the voting rights act and the march from Selma to Montgomery that came as a consequence.”

32.2 While I’m still on the Black List, Travis Beacham is one of a few scriptwriters whose work has appeared more than once on the List.
This year, it’s for his script for the Clash of the Titans remake, and in 2005, it was for A Killing on Carnival Row, which is set to be directed by Neil Jordan.

I’ve been looking forward to A Killing on Carnival Row for a while now, and if you haven’t heard of it, here’s its synopsis: “In the fictional Victorian town of Burgue, fantastical creatures [like] vampires and faeries live alongside humans. These mythological inhabitants, subjugated by the humans, are forced into either menial or criminal lines of work to merely survive, such as drug dealing vampires and fairy prostitutes. When a serial killer begins murdering the faeries, a la Jack The Ripper, a human detective who's been engaged in a taboo relationship with a fairy courtesan becomes the prime suspect and he sets out to clear his name by finding the true culprit.”

Can you just picture that, directed by Jordan? Awesome.
He hasn’t done anything this dark and fanciful since The Company of Wolves. (In case you’re wondering, I’m not a big fan of his Interview with the Vampire adaptation. And yes, The Butcher Boy was strange, but certainly not on Carnival Row’s lever of bizarre.)

32.3 And, in talking about Cormac McCarthy’s The Road—in Afterthoughts (31)—I said it had been a selection of Oprah’s Book of the Month Club.
Apparently, it’s simply Oprah’s Book Club. My apologies. Clearly, any endeavours undertaken by the All-Mighty O cannot be limited by anything, not even time.

32.4 And across the pond, there’s a Brit List, which is the UK version of The Black List, focusing on scripts by non-U.S. writers.
This first Brit List—compiled by an anonymous London agent—is made up of 49 screenplays, as determined by 40 UK and Irish film industry respondents. (The Black List 2007 has 130 scripts, as chosen by 150 respondents.)
Interestingly enough, there are some familiar titles on the Brit List.
At # 3 with 9 votes is Paul Webb’s Selma, # 5 on The Black List 2007. Another two-timer—with 5 votes on the Brit List—is Francesca Marciano’s The Wedding Party, which I mentioned in Afterthoughts (31).
Also, since I talked about Neil Jordan above, it should also be noted that his script for Borgia is also on the Brit List, with 2 votes.

You can find the entire Brit List here.

(The Black List 2007 banner courtesy of deadlinehollywooddaily.com; DVD cover art [The Company of Wolves and The Butcher Boy] courtesy of amazon.com.)

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