By my count, the 2022 Black List breaks down as follows:
Male writers - 50
Female writers - 24
Of those writers:
65 had managers
45 had agents
And of those scripts:
48 had producers attached
8 had financing attached
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For transparency - if it was a writing team, I only counted them once.
Male/Male = male
Male/Female = female
Female/Female = female
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@RWWFilm
Not sure why people seem confused as to why so many are repped writers, this list is compromised of scripts taken out to execs by reps. If anything I’m surprised there are any on the list who DONT have a rep.
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@LukeBarnett
Yeah, I wasn't sharing this as a "gotcha". To the few that did manage to get on the list with no agents or managers - I'd love to hear the stories of how they did it, because it's a huge achievement.
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@prex4
Unclear at this point - but don't think I'm not wondering the same thing (and assuming I already kinda know the answer).
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@turtle7313
Yeah, I obviously didn't have access to any demographic info from their side - but it would be really interesting to see.
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@RWWFilm
I'd like to know the sums of money involved in 'placing' on this list. You need to pay to host, then for regular reviews. Surely 4+ figures? Is this about finding talent or making money off selling a dream?
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@adamwate1
The annual list is a different entity from the website and is based on recommendations from industry execs.
I wouldn't think there's a bug correlation between spending $ on the one and placement on the other.
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@RWWFilm
Great breakdown. There's a misconception among new writers that lists like this (and fellowships, etc) are meant to discover talent when in reality they draw primarily from a pool that has already had some success.
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@Bitterstaff
Thanks. For those trying to break it, I honestly think it's most useful as a tool to identify the agents/managers they may want to reach out to.
Though I would also like to the TBL share some of their own additional demographic data.
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@RWWFilm
I noticed the poor ratio of female writers and was going to say something. It makes me wonder who their readers are.
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@LisaLueyLutes
The list isn’t based on readers, but nominations from 300+ studio executives asked to list their favorite unproduced scripts.
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@RWWFilm
I thought the point of the BL was to shine light on best unproduced scripts. Yet many have prodco, some even financing...
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@ZadokSarit
TBL isn’t a best of list (I believe they state that). It’s a survey of the industry, with execs sharing the best scripts they’ve read that haven’t been made yet.
I think it makes sense that most would be from writers w/ agents or managers as that’s how most execs would see them.
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@RWWFilm
Lots of info about diversity would be great but we won't see it, and rightly so, privacy does matter. I guess you coukd go old school and look all those writers up individually. I'm sure you'd find photos and IMDB pages
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