Elyse Hollander’s Madonna Biopic ‘Blond Ambition’ Tops 2016 Black List

Erik Anderson December 12, 2016

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Elyse Hollander’s “Blond Ambition” screenplay about Madonna’s first album topped the 2016 Black List.

What is the Black List, you might ask? It’s an annual ranking of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. In the Black List’s own words:

[box type=”shadow” align=”” class=”” width=””]The Black List was compiled from the suggestions of over 250 film executives, each of whom contributed the names of up to ten of her favorite scripts that were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2016 and will not have begun principal photography during this calendar year.[/box]

The project details the beginnings of Madonna’s career as she tries to get her first album made while struggling with love and romance in 1980s New York City. It’s backed by Brett Ratner’s Rat Pac and Michael De Luca (this year’s Oscar co-producer). No word from Madonna’s camp on what, if any, involvement there would be from the music superstar but it’s hard to imagine she’d be willing to allow her songs be used unless she was a producer on the film with creative input. The last time someone tried to make a Madonna biopic, it didn’t turn out so well. She didn’t allow the use of her songs and the film, which is available to watch in its awful entirety on YouTube, was a disaster. But hey, it did get an Emmy nomination for its costumes, so there’s that.

Elsewhere on the list are some high-profile names like Mindy Kaling with an untitled late night comedy script, Oscar-nominee Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler) and Oscar winner Graham Moore (The Imitation Game) both have scripts on the list plus juicy sounding screenplays about Monica Lewinsky, Tonya Harding (which goes into production next month with Margot Robbie) and Donald Trump.

Here is the full, ranked list for 2016:

Blond Ambition by Elyse Hollander (48)

Life Itself by Dan Fogelman (35)

The Olympian by Tony Tost (35)

The Post by Liz Hannah (35)

Voyagers by Zach Dean (28)

In the Blink of an Eye by Colby Day (25)

O2 by Christie LeBlan (22)

Untitled Lax Mandis Project by Seth Spector (22)

Dark Money by Matt Fruchtman (21)

Letters from Rosemary Kennedy by Nick Yarborough (21)

Linda and Monica by Flint Wainess (20)

Hala by Minhal Baig (19)

The Miserable Adventures of Burt Squire by Ben Bolea (18)

The Time Traveler’s La Ronde by Tom Dean (18)

Revolver by Kate Trefry (17)

Fairy Godmother by Chiara Atik (15)

Free Guy by Matt Lieberman (15)

The Kings of Maine by Kathy Charles (15)

Layla…and Other Love Songs by Derek Weissbein (15)

Maximum King! by Shay Hatten (15)

Battle of Alcatraz by Neil Widener, Gavin James (14)

I Think We’re Alone Now by Mike Makowsky (14)

Man Alive by Joe Greenberg (14)

Mother by Michael Lloyd Green (14)

Untitled Late Night Comedy by Mindy Kaling (14)

King of LA by Chris Bremner (13)

Let the Evil Go West by Carlos Rios (13)

Villains by Dan Berk, Robert Olsen (13)

Hart You by Zoe McCarthy (12)

James Cameron’s Titanic by Kate D’Angelo (12)

Northeast Kingdom by Alex R Johnson (12)

Barbarian by Rosalind Ross (11)

The Builder by Tom Cartier (11)

Untitled Fairy Tale by Cat Vasko (11)

Adrift by Aaron and Jordan Kandell (10)

Kings Canyon by Paul Hilborn, Evan Parter (10)

The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore (10)

Lee by Chris Urch (10)

Liberty by Jayson Rothwell (10)

Saving Charlie Chaplin by Justin Shady (10)

Two Butterflies by Evan Dodson (10)

The Woman With the Red Hair by Michael Schatz (10)

American Rebel by Christopher Cosmos (9)

Rugged by April Prosser (9)

Turned On by Charlie Kesslering (9)

Boyfriend Material by Mackenzie Dohr (8)

The Burning Season by Jenny Halper (8)

Contingency Protocol by Mark Townend (8)

A Deconstruction of Reality by Mattson Tomlin (8)

The Fruitcake by Trey Selman (8)

The Hunchback by Topher Rhys-Lawrence (8)

I, Tonya by Steven Rogers (8)

Inner City by Dan Gilroy (8)

Orb by Steve Desmond, Michael Sherman (8)

Burn Run by Matt Tente (7)

The Fall by Peter Bridges (7)

The Gun Show by Lucas Carter (7)

The Housewife by Alyssa Hill (7)

Hummingbird by John Tyler Mclain (7)

Reason of State by Matthew Orton (7)

Palmer by Cheryl Guerreiro (7)

Allison Adams by Devon Graye (6)

America: The Motion Picture by Dave Callaham (6)

Bad Education by Mike Makowsky (6)

Bitter Pill by Turner Hay (6)

Captain Infinity by Harry Tarre (6)

Carnada by Katharine Werner (6)

Donzinger by Matt Bai, Jay Carson (6)

Escape from Sarajevo by Vanya Asher (6)

Hotel Artemis by Drew Pearce (6)

Miller’s Girl by Jade Bartlett (6)

Mr. Toy by Chai Hecht (6)

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.