WGGB has joined forces with The Black List to help raise the prominence of UK-based writers in the worldwide film industry. The Black List began as a survey in 2005, when American film executive Franklin Leonard surveyed almost 100 film industry development executives about their favourite scripts from that year that had not yet been made. The results were compiled and sent out to all who responded, and the process has been repeated every year ever since.

More than 225 Black List screenplays have since been made as feature films. Those films have earned over $19 billion in worldwide box-office, have been nominated for more than 175 Academy Awards, and have won 30 (including Best Pictures Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech and Argo) and seven of the last 14 screenwriting Oscars.

The Black List also offers a membership site for industry professionals that functions as a real-time screenplay recommendation engine, allowing executives across the world to find the scripts that they want to make.

The WGGB partnership with The Black List allows members to list their scripts on The Black List site for free, raising their profile and helping more of their films to make it into production. The Black List site will also contain information about support and resources available for WGGB members.

“Great stories have no borders and the ability to access them shouldn’t either. We’re thrilled that this alliance with the WGGB will allow us to further make that the case,” said Black List founder Franklin Leonard.

As part of the newly formed alliance between the Writers Guild of America West and the Black List, all WGGB members will be able to add their script titles, loglines, tags and representative information, as well as monitor their work’s ratings and user traffic, free of charge. They will also receive a 20% discount on paid Black List services to host their scripts and obtain reader evaluations of their screenplays.

Since its launch, the Black List’s script-hosting website has been responsible for dozens of writers finding representation with major agencies and management companies, as well as more than a dozen script sales.

Visit The Black List website