In the Hollywood film production industry, the script is the most basic and simple link, only a typewriter and a creator are enough, almost zero cost of creation, which also attracts a large number of creators.

According to statistics, Hollywood can give birth to 50,000 scripts every year, not including the works of students, enthusiasts, and amateur screenwriters who are not registered, but among these scripts, less than 2,000 works can be established every year, and in the end, less than 300 works can be actually filmed, and as for those that are finally screened in theaters, the proportion is less than 0.3%.

On the other hand, for film companies, they must screen the scripts and select the scripts that are suitable for shooting and becoming movies and can make money, which is an extremely difficult process that can only be done manually, so each film company has set up a film and television pre-development manager, whose daily job is to select projects worthy of investment from a large number of scripts, and they need to read dozens or even hundreds of scripts a day.

In addition to the fierce competition, those newcomer screenwriters who are not represented, film companies will also stay away. Because they have no official channels to confirm whether these scripts involve plagiarism and plagiarism. As a result, this also makes the channel for film and television pre-development managers to obtain fresh scripts old and old, and it is difficult to break through innovation.

On the one hand, Hollywood studios struggle with the inability to find great scripts, and on the other hand, talented screenwriters struggle with the lack of appreciation for their work.

In 2005, Franklin-Leonard, a film and television pre-development manager, could no longer stand the low work efficiency, they not only needed to read a lot, but also had to read repeatedly, many scripts were circulated between major production companies, and after coming and going, re-reading scripts was a high-probability event, which not only consumed a lot of energy, but also had little effect, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. This year's Christmas, Franklin definitely took the initiative.

At the time, Franklin emailed his 80 peers, hoping that they would list the best scripts he had seen that year that had not yet been filmed, and in exchange he would provide them with a list of submissions. Out of these lists, Franklin made a "blacklist" based on everyone's recommendations. Within days, the list was spreading all over Hollywood, becoming the most fashionable Christmas gift in the industry.

After these years of development, the "blacklist" has gradually formed a system, more and more people participate in the selection, this year's blacklist, the number of industry insiders participating in the selection has reached 500 people, which is enough to represent the aesthetic taste of the entire Hollywood. Before Christmas, these 500 people would provide Franklin with the best scripts they had read in the year, and Franklin would select 70 to 100 scripts according to the number of votes, sort out the author's contact information, the agency to which he belongs, and form a so-called blacklist document.

This blacklist is very popular with industry insiders. First, it is judged by industry professionals and its quality is guaranteed, and secondly, the entire list does not involve commercial interests, and it does not care about the fame and status of the screenwriter, and the only requirement for inclusion on the list is to be recommended by at least six industry insiders.

So far, the excellent scripts on the blacklist include "The Queen", "Juno", "Inflatable Doll Love", "The King's Speech", "Slumdog Millionaire", "The Social Network", "Little Sunshine Beauty", "In the Clouds", "Fighter", and in the near future, "Escape from Tehran", "Life of Pi", "Burst Drummer", "Nebraska", "Fox Hunter", "American Sniper" and so on.

It is worth mentioning that the "Django Unchained" that Andy submitted to Lan Li last time was also a work on the blacklist.

It can be seen from this that the value of the blacklist works, although the quality of the finished product is still up for debate, but it is undeniable that as the basic script, this has been sufficiently guaranteed, especially for Oscar-based art films that pay attention to scripts.

Carefully browsing the blacklist, you can find that most of the scripts on it are not large-scale movies, but scripts with the inner emotions of the characters as the core, in other words, the scripts with small cost, small investment, small production, and small pattern account for most of them.

The main reason is that the scripts of commercial films have a fixed routine, a three-stage structure, a starting and turning, and a high/tide foreshadowing, and even the brewing of small highs/tides, which all have templates.

The Marvel series of movies led by "The Avengers" is a typical representative, and it is even so strict that it shakes a burden in three minutes, promotes a plot in five minutes, and turns in fifteen minutes, which are all traceable. Their playbook is the most representative business template.

Take a closer look, the Marvel series of movies is more fond of using unknown directors, rookie directors, and second-tier directors, and it is even more common for each sequel to change directors, because what they need is not a director who is "full of creativity and stylization", but a director who is decent, step-by-step, and completes the task, and completes the shooting in strict accordance with the framework structure of the script.

Therefore, on the blacklist of paying attention to the structure of the script, the emotions of the characters, and the ideological innovation, it is difficult to dig out the script that meets the standards of commercial blockbusters. Most commercial scripts are tailor-made. Although "Django Unchained" invested a full $100 million, this cannot be called a commercial script, and the reason why Weinstein Pictures is willing to spend so much is entirely because of Quentin Tarantino's face.

In my impression, even in 2017, there were only a handful of commercial film scripts on the blacklist.

Now, "Edge of Tomorrow" is not only blacklisted, but also ranked third on the list, and has been unanimously recognized by industry professionals, and the quality is guaranteed; moreover, this is still a sci-fi script that meets the standards of commercial blockbusters, Andy is naturally overjoyed, such a script is not only unavoidable, but even once-in-a-lifetime. For Lan Li, all aspects are perfectly suitable.

However, for a top company like Warner Bros., they don't like this script very much. They have always believed that the scripts of commercial films need templates, and those whimsical and quality-winning scripts in the blacklist will cause them more worries. All industry insiders know that for commercial films, a good script is important, but not necessary -

Rhythm control, style orientation, high/tide setting, visual effects, narrative techniques, etc., this is the decisive link.

Don't say Warner Bros., even Andy himself, there is a lot of uncertainty between the words. Commercial films and art films are still different after all.

An excellent art film is half successful when it has an excellent art script, and an excellent commercial film is only just starting when it has an excellent commercial script.

After the script is on the blacklist, it is only the first draft, and before it is put into official shooting, the script will go through layers of revisions and determine the final shooting version, and after the final draft, the appearance of the script, the storyline, and even the characters and themes will change dramatically.

Take "Life of Pi" as an example, in the blacklist, the author of this script is Jean-Pierre-Jeunet (Jean-Pierre-Jeunet) and Guillaume-Laurant (Guillaume-Laurant), both of whom are well-known French filmmakers, but when "Life of Pi" was actually released, the screenwriter was David Margo (David Magee), who wrote the screenwriter of "Finding Neverland".

This involves the issue of the authorship of Hollywood screenwriters. According to the official regulations of the Screenwriters Guild, a screenwriter's contribution to the final script needs to be more than 30% to be eligible for signature, and if it is less than 30%, there is no right of authorship, so there are generally no more than three screenwriters for a script.

In this case, the earliest version of Jean-Pierre and Guillaume's script was extensively rewritten and revised by David, and it can even be considered that David rewrote a script based on the original book, which also made Jean-Pierre and Guillaume not appear in the final cast.

At the beginning, Twentieth Century Fox was preparing to hand over "Life of Pi" to Jean-Pierre Genet as directed, and he had already drawn a storyboard for the film, but his proposed cost budget of $80 million scared Twentieth Century Fox away.

Subsequently, after readjustment, Twentieth Century Fox was handed over to Lee/Ann - although Lee/Ann proposed a production cost of 120 million or more, Lee/Ann's appeal was significantly higher than that of Jean-Pierre.

As mentioned earlier, Twentieth Century Fox is a company that has blind trust in big-name directors. In the end, "Life of Pi" was handed over to Lee/An.

Andy also mentioned just now that the script in his hand is only the first draft, and at present, Warner Bros. has not yet determined the producer and director, so naturally, the final version of the script cannot be determined, whether to use the current version, which is enough, or does it need to rewrite the script according to the director's style, or is it to match the style of visual effects, leave the story framework, and completely overturn the script?

The same script, Johnny Depp's version, Brad Pitt's version, Tom Cruise's version, will present very different effects, even if it is a popcorn commercial movie, and the box office results brought by different versions are bound to be very different.

The script of the blacklist has a great reputation, but there are too many uncertain factors after all, even old fritters like Andy and Warner Bros. are inevitably hesitant.

This is the second time Lan Li has come into contact with the blacklist script - "Django Rescued" is the first time, and he can't help but be curious: what is the sacredness of this commercial film included in the blacklist? Compared with the works of "Alien Battlefield", "Super Battleship" and "Black Shadow", what are the advantages? Are these advantages enough to be converted into an excellent work?

opened the script, Lan Li read it carefully, never thought that it was actually this book, could it be that the butterfly effect has begun to play a role? .