Films, News, Women Writers

Black List 2016 Topped by Elyse Hollander’s Script about Madonna

Madonna’s “Madonna”: Sire/Warner Bros.

The 2016 edition of the Black List has dropped. “Blond Ambition,” a Madonna biopic penned by Elyse Hollander, scored the most votes from the 250 film executives asked to participate.

Each exec “contributed the names of up to ten of her favorite scripts that were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2016 and will not have begun principal photography during this calendar year,” the Black List writes. Each script had to receive a minimum of six mentions to make the cut. This year’s Black List includes 73 scripts. By our count, 19 of them are written by women, amounting to 26 percent of the list.

“Blond Ambition” received 48 votes. Set in 1980s New York, the script centers on Madonna’s “struggles to get her first album released while navigating fame, romance, and a music industry that views women as disposal,” according to its logline.

Madonna just delivered an inspiring speech at the Billboard Women in Music Event, where she accepted the award for Woman of the Year. “I stand before you as a doormat,” the singer said on stage before continuing, “Oh, I mean a female entertainer.”

Other women-written scripts to receive many votes and crack the top 10 include Liz Hannah’s “The Post” (35 votes) and Christie LeBlan’s “O2” (22 votes). The former is based on the true story of a Washington Reporter journalist and her editor who worked together to publish a history-altering story about the Pentagon Papers and the latter is a thriller centered on a woman who wakes up in a a cryogenic chamber with no recollection of how she ended up in there.

Not all of the scripts on the Black List are looking for a home. Some of them have already been bought and are going into production soon. For example, MGM has already secured the rights to playwright Chiara Atik’s “Fairy Godmother,” a comedy about a love triangle between a teen client, her fairy godmother, and a prince. Fox 2000 snagged the rights to Mindy Kaling’s untitled late-night comedy back in September. The film will star Emma Thompson as a veteran late-night talk show host and Kaling as the first female writer she hires.

Check out the female screenwriters included in the Black List 2016 below. List adapted from The Playlist.

“Carnada”
Screenwriter: Katharine Werner
Based on true events in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a young CIA agent is assigned to the Miami field office to become a case officer for a charismatic Cuban ambassador offering to help eliminate Fidel Castro.

“Fairy Godmother”
Screenwriter: Chiara Atik
Fay is an in-demand fairy godmother hired by a “mind-boggling gorgeous” teenage client to bag a handsome prince. She hits a snag when the prince falls in love with the godmother, not his intended teen match.

“Rugged”
Screenwriter: April Prosser
Four female coworkers get lost in the wilderness when they are on a team building activity and they have to work together to survive.

“The Post”
Screenwriter: Liz Hannah
“The Post” is the true story about how about a Washington Post reporter and her editor overcame their differences to publish the story about the Pentagon Papers… which would change their lives.

“The Housewife”
Screenwriter: Alyssa Hill
Based on a true story set in 1960s New York, a journalist finds and investigates a woman whom he believes is married to a Nazi in hiding. Their relationship results in the first ever extradition of an American citizen for war crimes.

“Blond Ambition”
Screenwriter: Elyse Hollander
In 1980s New York, Madonna struggles to get her first album released while navigating fame, romance, and a music industry that views women as disposal.

“Palmer”
Screenwriter: Cheryl Guerreiro
A recently-paroled convict returns to his hometown in the South, where he forms an unlikely-but-powerful bond with a young, effeminate boy.

“Untitled Late Night Comedy”
Screenwriter: Mindy Kaling
A veteran late-night talk show host comes close to losing her job after hiring the show’s first female writer.

“Boyfriend Material”
Screenwriter:Mackenzie Dohr
In the near future, a heartbroken girl who hates technology participates in an experiment that allows you to program a robot into your dream man.

“Space Oddity”
Screenwriter: Rebecca Banner
A young man obsessed with taking a one-way trip to Mars begins to question his motives when he starts to fall in love with the Insurance Agent underwriting his trip.

“Hart You”
Screenwriter: Zoe McCarthy
Estranged siblings pose as a married couple in the Amalfi Coast to win a cash prize.

“The Burning Season”
Screenwriter: Jenny Halper
A primatologist takes her teenage daughter to a remote region of Madagascar, where her determination to save endangered lemurs puts their relationship and safety at risk. Based on the short story “What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us” by Laura Van Den Berg

“O2”
Screenwriter: Christie LeBlanc
Waking up inside a cryogenic chamber with no memory of how she got there, Charlie must somehow escape the chamber before her air runs out.

“James Cameron’s Titanic”
Screenwriter: Kate D’Angelo
A Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead take on Titanic. An overprotective mother attempts to keep her teenage daughter, young son, and rowdy sister together while sailing on the doomed voyage of the Titanic in 1912.

“Miller’s Girl”
Screenwriter: Jade Bartlett
A precocious young writer becomes involved with her high school creative writing teacher in a dark coming- of-age drama that examines the blurred lines of emotional connectivity between professor and protege, child and adult.

“Barbarian”
Screenwriter: Rosalind Ross
Based on the true story of Boudicca, a queen and warrior of the British Celtic Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.

“The Kings of Maine”
Screenwriter: Kathy Charles
Living with his wife and child in a trailer while working as a janitor, Stephen King struggles with alcoholism and his own dark history as he attempts to complete Carrie.

“Revolver”
Screenwriter: Kate Trefry
Based on true events in Anchorage, Alaska in 1966, a teen girl attempts to sneak into the hotel where the Beatles are staying to lose her virginity to George Harrison.

“Hala”
Screenwriter: Minhal Baig
When a teenage Muslim-American girl, struggling with identity issues already, discovers her father is having an affair with a colleague, she responds by seducing her English teacher, ultimately leading to her parents’ divorce.

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