Franklin Leonard and The Black List to Receive 2024 Gotham Awards Anniversary Tribute in Honor of Platform’s 20th Year
by The Gotham Staff on October 24, 2024
The Gotham Awards Will Take Place in NYC on Monday, December 2, 2024
New York, NY (October 23, 2024) – The Gotham Film & Media Institute announced today that Franklin Leonard and his company, the Black List, the platform dedicated to nurturing written storytelling and empowering writers to maximize their professional potential, will receive The Gotham Anniversary Tribute at the 34th annual Gotham Awards Ceremony, taking place live and in person on Monday, December 2, 2024 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.
The Anniversary Tribute was created by The Gotham in order to recognize the major milestones and storied commitments of entertainment’s most influential individuals. With the Anniversary Tribute, The Gotham will honor the 20th anniversary of the Black List, which has been dedicated to identifying and celebrating exceptional storytelling since it was first established by Leonard in 2005. Most recently, Mariska Hargitay received the Anniversary Tribute at the inaugural Gotham TV awards for her outstanding run on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
“With the Black List, Franklin Leonard has undeniably reshaped Hollywood by elevating talented writers and remarkable projects. His commitment to nurturing emerging screenwriters and lowering barriers to entry for talent is one that resonates deeply with The Gotham and our values,” said Jeffrey Sharp, Executive Director of The Gotham Film & Media Institute. “So many of Hollywood’s most beloved films, such as Juno, Slumdog Millionaire, and The King’s Speech, were all given a singular platform by the annual Black List that helped them get made. We are honored to present Franklin and the Black List with the Anniversary Tribute.”
First established as an annual survey of Hollywood’s most-liked unproduced screenplays, the Black List has since grown into a comprehensive resource for the film, TV, publishing, and theater worlds, serving thousands of writers, agents, managers, showrunners, producers, financiers, directors, actors, and theater industry professionals. To date, more than 400 scripts from the Black List’s annual survey have been produced as feature films, resulting in more than $30B in global box office and 300 Academy Award nominations and 50 wins, including four Best Pictures and nearly half of the screenwriting Oscars awarded since 2007. Some of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful films that were produced after appearing on the annual Black List include Juno, Slumdog Millionaire and The King’s Speech. In September 2024, the Black List announced its expansion into fiction, allowing fiction writers to use blcklst.com to create a free profile to showcase their completed novels.
Beyond serving as CEO of the platform, Leonard is also a film and television producer, having worked in feature film development at Universal Pictures and the production companies of Will Smith, Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Winners of the 34th Annual Gotham Awards will be honored at the awards ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on Monday, December 2, 2024. The Premier Sponsor of the 2024 Gotham Awards is Vanity Fair.
About The Gotham Awards
The Gotham Awards honors visionary talent in front of and behind the camera, expands the audience for groundbreaking film and television, and supports the year-round work of the not-for-profit The Gotham Film & Media Institute. With high-profile VIP guests and a superior location, the Gotham Awards provides sponsors with an incomparable setting for a meaningful presence at the first honors of the film awards season.
About the Gotham Film & Media Institute
The Gotham celebrates and nurtures independent film and media creators, providing career-building resources, access to industry influencers, and pathways to wider recognition. The organization, under the leadership of Executive Director and award-winning producer Jeffrey Sharp, fosters a vibrant and sustainable independent storytelling community through its year-round programs, which include Gotham Week, Gotham International, Filmmaker Magazine, the Gotham Awards, Gotham EDU, Owning It, and Expanding Communities.
About The Black List
The Black List is a platform dedicated to identifying and celebrating exceptional storytelling. First established in 2005 as an annual survey of Hollywood’s most-liked unproduced screenplays, The Black List has since grown into a comprehensive resource for the film, TV, publishing, and theater worlds, serving thousands of writers, agents, managers, showrunners, producers, financiers, directors, actors, and theater industry professionals.
More than 400 scripts from the annual Black List survey have been produced, grossing over $28B in worldwide box offices. Films produced from those Black List scripts have won four Best Picture Oscars and 12 Best Screenplay Oscars since 2007. A Harvard Business school study found that “Black-Listed scripts were twice as likely to be made into films…They also did better at theaters, with movies of the same budget generating 90% more revenue at the box office.”
In October 2012, The Black List launched a unique online community to cater to the needs of screenwriters, creatives, and industry professionals. Since its inception, it has hosted more than 100,000 scripts and provided more than 130,000 script evaluations. Among the films produced: NAACP Award-nominated MR MALCOLM’S LIST, Independent Spirit Award-nominated THE NOVICE, and Golden Globe-nominated NIGHTINGALE, starring David Oyelowo. The Black List also supports various programs for writers–including mentorships, production funds, and direct financial grants–in collaboration with its sponsors.
In September 2024, The Black List announced its expansion into fiction. This launch allowed fiction writers to use blcklst.com to create a free profile that showcases their completed novels regardless of publication status, purchase professional feedback from The Black List’s experienced readers, and submit their manuscripts to various fiction-specific programs. As a longstanding advocate for increasing access and visibility for screenplays in Hollywood, The Black List aims to bring the same clarity and connectivity to the publishing industry, linking it with the film and television industries and writers around the world.
More information on The Black List is available at www.blcklst.com. For regular updates, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Letterboxd, and Youtube.
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