I agree we should be able to conform a story to a page-length. It is a great exercise in economy - in theory, the longer the page-count, the easier it is to trim. It is much easier to trim a 120-page story to 115-pages than to trim, say, a 7-page story into a 6-page one, which I was challenged to do twice last month in the shorts I directed. But that is a technicality compared to the complexity of our experience of time. It makes me think of films like Ryan's daughter--at 206 pages and still too short--whereas in other scripts, ten pages seem like an eternity.

I am quite concerned about the length of the screenplay I have just uploaded to the Blacklist. So does this mean that it will not be read because of the page count? Scott are you able to read it and give me feedback? This screenplay has been a part of my life for so long now, I would most certainly be very disappointed it wasn’t even looked at as it was pages over what is expected these days....

120 is the absolute limit, but 100-110 is better. Anything above 120 and I think you're indulgent and/or don't know how things work. 99% of the time, when a writer says "but my script NEEDS the extra pages," I disagree. You have to follow the rules we all follow. Sometimes in development, scripts (mine included) get longer than 120. But eventually they need to get back down to 110ish. Don't give readers a negative impression of you before they even open the script! Also remember that we don't get paid more to read a longer script.

And yes, you will hear stories of scripts that were above 120...but it's dangerous/unhelpful to think that you're the exception to the rule. Most new writers aren't executing at the level of people who sell specs for millions of dollars.

This is just an anecdote, but I think it's worthwhile. I was hired for a rewrite on a script. It was 110 pages. The original writer really went overboard with his prose and over-writing, though. I did just a pass to eliminate all the excess description and dialogue -- didn't touch a think with the story/plot -- and cut it down to 93 pages. Now, the first writer had to have thought the script was done, otherwise I don't think he'd've put it out into the world. Lucky for me, though, the director that hired me saw the story in the mess and we were able to clean it up. At the same time, I was writing a script that came in at 115 pages. I thought it was good, but I decided to take the concepts I used for straightening up the re-write job. I was surprised when, at the end of just asking myself what dialogue and action and scenes were absolutely necessary, that I had a 97 page script left. My wife read that draft (she had read the longer draft earlier) and said she didn't really notice a difference. My lesson: You probably don't need those scenes or lines of action and dialogue that you think are holding your script together. I'm now working on my fifth spec script and, with just seeing what's needed for a story to work, have a strong feeling that this might be the one.

Something I like to bear in mind is that here we are talking about page counts when outputted to US Letter format. It is not uncommon for writers in the rest of the world to work in A4 on their chosen software and ultimately output to Letter, often generating a few extra pages. If this is your yardstick writers, then consider apples to apples.

As a script reader, shorter is USUALLY better. Have I read scripts that were over 120 that I liked? Sure. Several times. But it was by an established writer and it was for a sci-fi franchise for a major studio and major budget. A number of awesome scripts on this past years Blacklist clocked in between 120-130, but most of those writers already had agents or at the very least managers when those scripts went out. Generally shorter and concise is better than too long. As a writer my own Action-Thriller script it was around 105 (a nice length!) but then with notes from some agency folks it wound up being around 118. Everyone who's read it so far now says it's better, but it's longer so I'm anxious, but on a story level I think it works better.

I understand you can replace a script on the Black List site with a newer draft. So if you find you're not getting downloads after a few weeks, you might consider editing the script to a more standard length and putting that version up there...?