So I woke up from my medically-induced coma on Friday morning to the shocking news that BALLS OUT had made the 2009 Black List.
No, I’m not kidding.
Seriously.
Don’t believe me?
Here’s the link to prove it!
Now, if you’re not familiar with The Black List, here it is in a nutshell, as described on their website:
THE BLACK LIST is a snapshot of the collective taste of the people who develop, produce, and release theatrical feature films in the Hollywood studio system and the mainstream independent system.
An annual list of Hollywood’s most liked unproduced screenplays published on the second Friday of December each year, THE BLACK LIST began in 2004 as a survey with contributions from 75 film studio and production company executives. In 2008, over 250 executives contributed their opinions.
Since its inception, dozens of screenplays that appeared on the list have been optioned, produced, and released, many to great commercial success. Two of the top three screenplays on the inaugural 2005 list – JUNO by Diablo Cody and LARS AND THE REAL GIRL by Nancy Oliver – went on to be nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 2008 Academy Awards, with JUNO winning the Oscar.
What makes the inclusion of BALLS OUT so unexpected is the fact that it never officially went out to the town. People primarily read it via this stupid website of ours and passed it around to their friends and so on. It’s only in the last couple of months since switching managers that we’ve actually gotten out there and met with people about it, although not really at a studio level.
So I guess it’s something of an unprecedented event to land a script on The Black List that came to the collective consciousness of the film industry via a website.
Anyway, we’ve been hoping for a long while now to have SOMETHING come of this experiment – either a sale or an option or an assignment or whatever – so that our story might have something of a positive ending and I think this pretty much qualifies.
Plus they pretty much ruined the joke of this website/blog by outing us publicly, so continuing to post as Mongo and Battle Dolphin Zero would pretty much be pointless.
We sincerely appreciate everyone that has made this memorable experience memorable and hope that we won’t have to resort to posting our next collaboration on the internet.
When reached via teletype in Antartica, Battle Dolphin Zero had the following to add:
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was thrilled about the blacklist. After a very difficult start with getting “Balls Out” out, we were just starting to see some momentum during the later half of this year and the Blacklist is nice way to carry it into 2010.
I’m particularly proud considering that this script never went out to studios (so we had very few studio execs voting for us) and, consequently, never got set up.”
I kinda wish he’d mentioned his balls, don’t you?
what is your writing background/experience? how old are mr. dolphin zero and mr. todd karate? real ages that is. let’s not be females about this and or count in dog years. there might be something in it for you. maybe, eh, but no, no probably not.
Now that I know what you guys look like – I still want to be you guys.
Oh and Tim’s account of the Cumberland Gap is sensational.
Still my heroes. What do I do/watch/read to be as insanely skilled writers as yourselves? (Apart from reading every one of your posts and writing replies obviously.)
Seriously, no joke, your guys’ influence actually made me several times funnier to someone who usually only finds me mildly amusing.
I can’t tell if that’s a good thing.