In recent years various producers, agents, and other people with nice offices and access to free snacks have been voting on what Entertainment Weekly calls the "Hollywood equivalent of the Rookie of the Year Award" or what one producer described to me as the "D-girl Heisman". It's called the Black List. My working theory is that economic depressions must spark renewed interest in woodland creatures, otherwise I'm at a loss to explain how we ended up on top of it.
If you've been reading this blog for any length of time then you know how improbable this is. If you read the previous blog and saw the wayward and stupefying way that the script came together amid much angsty twin baking then you no doubt shared my feeling that the only lists I would top would be ones in gas station restrooms signifying who was responsible for their last cleaning.
I'd be lying if I said that I hadn't read the Black List in years past, then scrounged around for the scripts on it, and been inspired to imagine how awesome it would be to end up in such a spot. I have no idea what will happen to The Beaver in the future. My hopes are high, but we'll see. What I can say without reservation is that I never imagined more than ten people would try to read it, and of those, more than five would finish it. So starting with the sixth person who said they not only completed, but liked it, I've been pretty sky high.
I see the world in very simple terms. I'm a lucky idiot and the rest of you are geniuses. So while the value of being on the list is certainly debatable, the value of the kind and supportive words I've gotten from all of you as well as the people who put me there is not. I treasure them every time I clean that gas station bathroom.
8 comments:
Wow!! Congratulations! Is this (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1321860/) that script?
And we all gave you crap about having your script be about a beaver.
Congrats Kyle.
Heather, I guess that's the script, although how they came up with 2011 for a release is beyond me. Oh IMDB, you're such optimists.
Jeff, thx.
kyle,
that's great! congrats!
don't expect this to change anything when we play your team in winter league.
-moose
If you let us go to the slick Hollywood premier, then we'll let you stay at our, ahem, chalet when you show it at Sundance. And, I'll let you use one of my many cool snowboards.
Very nice! This list accomplishes two things as I see it.
1) Further validates in a national magazine what many of your old friends have known, well, forever (but certainly after 10-15 years of being your test audience and occasional guerrilla actors).
2) Seeing the vast quantity of screenplays (aka unknown writers) on the black list, especially all those with 4 to 10 mentions or whatever... I finally give myself permission to burn my little personal box of unfinished, half-assed movie titles and story ideas that I've always been meaning to get around to. There's something about seeing these kind of effort piles that gives me a refreshing "time to move on" feeling of freedom. (not unlike deciding to quit basketball after 8 free throw airballs).
But having said that, it's also extremely awesome to know somebody (and the compromises they did NOT make) to ascend to the top of such a heap.
All, thanks.
Mark, this indeed changes nothing, we will still destroy you.
Jason, deal.
Michael, it was nine airballs in a row and I never quit, I just took my game to the driveway where I could miss in peace.
Congrats! I read your script a couple of months ago and thought it was amazing, so when I saw it take the number one spot I was pleasantly surprised. Sorry to be another one of those strangers who's stalked you, but I just had to congratulate you. I mean, come on, your script beat Tarantino's! You know you have something special on your hands. Best of luck!
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