Why Hollywood Can't Find Good Scripts

About this episode

The episode discusses the challenges faced by screenwriters in Hollywood and features an interview with Franklin Leonard about the Black List and other industry issues.

How to get discovered in Hollywood has been a decades-old struggle. For screenwriters, that game started to change when Franklin Leonard launched the Black List, an annual ranking of the “most liked” but not-yet-produced screenplays. Since 2005, more than 500 of those scripts have become feature films, including several Best Picture Oscar-winners. Ryan Knutson interviewed Leonard about how to fix some of Hollywood’s other challenges at our live show in Los Angeles. Further Listening: - Hollywood Jobs Are Disappearing - Inside the Nasty Fight to Take Over Hollywood - The Journal. - For Riz Ahmed, Life is a Spy Thriller Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Ryan Knutson

Guest: Franklin Leonard

Topics covered

• Hollywood
• screenwriting
• Black List
• film industry
• challenges in Hollywood

Keywords

• Hollywood
• screenwriters
• Black List
• feature films
• Oscar winners

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Hollywood, Black List, The Wall Street Journal, Spotify Studios

Books & works: Best Picture Oscar

More episodes of The Journal.

• Is SpaceX Worth the Hype? · June 11, 2026 · 23 min
• How Beef Got So Expensive · June 10, 2026 · 21 min
• Bill Gates’s Carefully Crafted Image Is Cracking · June 9, 2026 · 24 min
• Why Sweden Embraced Capitalism · June 8, 2026 · 20 min
• The World Cup Story, Part 1: Soccer and Scandal · June 7, 2026 · 39 min
• Americans Have More Credit Card Debt Than Ever · June 5, 2026 · 21 min