Scheming and Rom Coms Are Big on This Year’s Black List
The Black List, the annual collection of the best unproduced feature screenplays floating around Tinseltown, was just released yesterday and gives you a potential barometer of what’s in or what might be in the works that will come to theaters and/or a big streamer in the next couple of years. This year’s Black List has a lot of heists, sports, and more rom coms than we can remember. Extrapolate that as a reflection of high inflation and need for escapism and hope, but it’s always a fascinating read of several log lines.
Below, we’ve got the ones that are either comedies (such as the Hindenburg dark comedy or the one co-written by comedian Mary Beth Barone) or probably comedies because that’s how they log line reads. For our money, the log line for OH THE HUMANITY is best logline we’ve ever read for any movie ever and a lot of has to do with its use of profanity and alt descriptions. Take a gander and imagine the trailers for all of these Black List scripts below.
OH THE HUMANITY
Gillian Weeks
A dark comedy about the Hindenburg Disaster; or, the mostly true story about one of the biggest fuckups in history, the assholes who tried to cover it up, and the female gossip reporter who made some Nazis very angry.
BABY BOOM
Jack Waz
When her sister’s gender reveal party triggers the apocalypse, a woman and her husband have to prove to themselves, and the world, that they’re responsible enough to save it
THERE YOU ARE
Brooke Baker
When a non-confrontational playwright loses her engagement ring, she must travel through Italy to get it back with a man who was supposed to be just a one-night stand, discussing love and lying along the way
JINGLE BELL HEIST
Abby McDonald
At the height of the holiday season, two strangers team up to rob one of New York’s most famous department stores while accidentally falling in love.
MEGA ACTION HIT
Sean Tidwell
After Hollywood’s leading action star hits his head on set and wakes up thinking he’s a real-life action hero, he embarks on an international mission to track down a real stolen nuke before it’s too late
TOTAL LANDSCAPING
Woody Bess
A day in the life of the employees of Four Seasons Total Landscaping and its neighboring businesses on November 7th, 2020: the day an average, working-class strip mall in East Philadelphia became the focal point of the most divisive presidential election in American History.
CHEAT DAY
Emma Dudey
When a young woman in a decade-long heterosexual relationship realizes she needs to explore her bisexuality, she and her boyfriend institute a “Cheat Day:” 24 hours in which they can do whatever–and whomever–before deciding whether to get engaged or break up.
POPULAR
Marley Schneier
GOP strategist Lee Atwater won the presidency for George H.W. Bush in 1988, and his campaign changed politics forever–and gave him the worst reputation in America. Now, Lee is on his deathbed, and he needs to tell God his side of the story…before it’s too late.
WHO MADE THE POTATO SALAD?
Kyle Drew
A family’s Christmas dinner goes awry when a xenomorphic demon starts to duplicate and imitate each member of the family. What does it want? To show them their greatest fears
BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME
Kristen Tepper
Two best friends run a successful underground service taking womens’ toxic exes on humiliating dates, but their friendship is put to the ultimate test when an old mark plots his revenge.
I LOVE YOU NOW AND FOREVER
Robert Machoian
After exhausting all financial options to save their dying daughter, Frank and Abby are forced into a final act of desperation: rob a local bank.
42.6 YEARS
Seth Reiss
After waking up from a failed experimental lifesaving procedure in which he was cryogenically frozen for 42.6 years, a young man realizes he wants his ex-girlfriend back. He’ll have to overcome the fact that while he hasn’t aged a day, she’s lived an entire life without him.
LIFE OF THE PARTY
Julie Mandel Folly & Hannah Murphy
In this contemporary reimagining of Frankenstein, two teenage feminists struggle to create the perfect boyfriend, only to watch their experiment deteriorate as he succumbs to the ultimate perpetrator of casual high school misogyny: the football team.
ETERNITY
Pat Cunnane
After death, everybody gets one week to choose where to spend eternity. For Joan, Larry, and Luke, it’s really a question of who to spend it with.
MARRIAGE BRACKET
Liv Auerbach & Daisygreen Stenhouse
Ten years after a group of girlfriends bet on which of them would be the last to get married, their adult lives and relationships are completely upended when they discover the $80 they drunkenly invested in Bitcoin is now worth $5.2 million.
YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND
Mary Beth Barone & Erin Woods
Lily is mature, thoughtful, artistic, and… awkward. Rosie is sweet, caring, and popular with dreams of being a star. When Lily breaks down in tears on her 15th birthday because she has no friends, her Aunt Beth (a hot shot at a big movie studio) devises a plan. Aunt Beth agrees to jump start Rosie’s acting career as long as she can convincingly play the role of a lifetime: Lily’s best friend. Aunt Beth has the scheme and Rosie has the talent. All they have to do is get away with it.
For the entire Black List for 2022, check out the PDF here.
