It's all well and good, a Hollywood Executive getting filled with 90 minutes of 'spirit' and ticking a box to say that's one of his/her favorite scripts of the year. But what counts is skin in the game. (Before I started reading American scripts I had no idea what that phrase meant!). I suggest the statistic that matters to writers most is how many of these scripts get turned into A) Movies or B) Paychecks for writers. After a 3-5 year lag its a good moment to look at an old blacklist and determine how many subsequently got turned into movies. Also if the demographic of the writer is being recorded (gender but not race or age) isn't it time we got a look behind the veil and found out the gender, age and race of the 250+ voters in this contest.

All good points. Real quick as I'm off to a call, compare the Black List to, say, the Nicholl. Over the last decade, there have been WAY more Black List scripts produced than the Nicholl. It makes sense because Nicholl is about new voices whereas Black List, while also having some new voices is about unproduced scripts within the Hwood development system. Note: Even if a Black List does NOT get produced, the benefits of making the List are immeasurable in terms of PR, meetings, helping to secure writing assignments, extending longevity of a career, etc. Re demographics of voters: That's an interesting point and I'll pass that along to the Black List team.