TUBI AND THE BLACK LIST ANNOUNCE FINALISTS
Five Projects have been Selected as Part of the First-of-its-Kind Partnership with the Black List to Discover New Stories With Diverse Audience Appeal
SAN FRANCISCO, November 26, 2024 – Tubi (www.tubi.tv), Fox Corporation’s (NASDAQ: FOXA, FOX) ad-supported streaming service, today announced the finalists in a first of-its-kind partnership with The Black List. Originally titled the “To Be Commissioned” Initiative – the partnership was established to discover fresh, new stories from both emerging and established writers. The initiative drew approximately 2,000 submissions out of which five finalists were selected. Each script has been selected for further development with the goal of greenlighting to production and distribution by Tubi. The Black List would executive produce the films.
The five finalists (in alphabetical order) are as follows:
- All Things Considered by James Choi. After an overdose sends Paul to the hospital, his spirited Korean-American Mother, So-Ri, is determined to reconnect with her son and help him with his depression through an exotic South Korean ritual that promises to deliver people from their despair.
- Marigold Paradox by Monisha Dadlani. A couple’s elaborate wedding weekend is jeopardized when their future selves travel back in time to stop the matrimony.
- Frankentits by Ellen Meiser. From the shitty and the funny to the lonely bits, an imaginative millennial grapples with breast cancer. Will she reject life or embrace every single part of it?
- The Chicken Murders by Nadia Osman. Based on the true story of Zankou Chicken, the son of a dysfunctional Armenian family flees the Lebanese Civil War with his “loved” ones to open a chain of successful chicken restaurants in LA — but ambition, greed, and trauma tear the family apart, leading to betrayal, revenge, and murder.
- Pick Me Up by V.P. Walling and Mark Skeele Wilson. A gay pill-addicted gynecologist and a Queer out-of-work, out-of-shape, out-of-chances comedian set off on a road trip to rehab, and find recovery in each other.
“As a platform that proudly advocates for first time filmmakers and creatives, our partnership with The Black List amplifies our investment in the future of storytelling,” said Adam Lewinson, Chief Content Officer at Tubi. “These five projects are exactly the type of unique and impactful stories that we look forward to developing with the goal of reaching Tubi’s vast, diverse audience.”
“By partnering with Tubi, who understands how to intentionally reach its communities and fans through content on the platform, we’re proud to champion great, undiscovered writing that is representative of the future of storytelling,”said Franklin Leonard, founder of The Black List.
With over 81 million monthly active users, Tubi has emerged as the fastest growing U.S. streaming service and the world’s largest content library that brings together the most vast, diverse universe of stories. The initiative underscores Tubi and the Black List’s commitment to broadening the access to these diverse stories on a global scale.
Dadlani is repped by Verve, Good Fear and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Feldman, Rogal, Shikora & Clark, Inc. Osman is repped by Ginsburg Daniels Kallis. Walling & Wilson are also repped by Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Feldman, Rogal, Shikora & Clark.
About Tubi
Tubi is the most watched free TV and movie streaming service in the U.S., dedicated to providing all people access to all the world’s stories. The company engages diverse audiences through a personalized experience and the world’s largest content library of over 250,000 movies and TV episodes, a growing collection of exclusive originals and over 250 live channels. Tubi is part of the Tubi Media Group, a division of Fox Corporation that oversees the company’s digital businesses.
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.
About the Writers
James Choi has extensive experience spanning Hollywood and the independent film scene in Chicago. Throughout his career, he’s produced two critically acclaimed films, Made in China, which received the Grand Jury Award, and Saint Frances, which won the Audience Award at South by Southwest. The films were distributed by IFC Films and Oscilloscope Laboratories, respectively. Saint Frances also garnered nominations for two Gotham Awards and the John Cassavetes Award at the 2021 Independent Spirit Awards. In 2017, he founded Indie Studio, a platform designed to provide financing and support to DePaul University students keen on directing and producing feature independent films. The latest feature to come out of Indie Studio, Waiting for the Light to Change, recently won the Grand Jury Award for Best Feature at Slamdance in 2023 He is a member of the independent film community in Chicago, committed to mentoring and collaborating with emerging filmmakers. His aim is to tell timely stories through innovative formats that explore the intersection of truth and imagination, blurring the lines between what is real and what is possible.
Monisha Dadlani is a New York City-born, Los Angeles-based multi-hyphenate with an affinity for grounded magical realism, coming of age narratives, and all things romance. An alum of Ron Howard & Brian Grazer’s Imagine Impact, her feature The Boy Who Died placed on the 2020 Black List. Previously, she was a writer for Netflix’s feature animation division and has written on projects for Sony Pictures Television, MRC, and Apple TV+. Currently, she’s adapting two books for Amazon MGM.
Nadia Osman is an Arab-American writer and performer from Southern California. The daughter of an Egyptian Muslim immigrant raised in a dual-religious household, Nadia’s work aims for what she calls “funny-sad,” exploring themes of identity, mental health, trauma, grief, and complex family dynamics. Nadia is an Academy Nicholls Fellowship semi-finalist, Black List Features Lab alumni, Slamdance Finalist, and more for various film and TV projects. She is currently developing a horror feature with Eddie Rubin at Optimistic Pictures. Previously, Nadia wrote for the animated series Hero Inside, while her pilot and web series Depressed was a Vimeo Staff Pick and praised by Vulture. She’s also an alum of the Maude and Digital sketch teams at the UCB Theatre in Los Angeles.
Ellen Meiser grew up in Alaska. She pens stories that explore the humor of survival. Her screenplay, FRANKENTITS, for example, is a comedic processing of a 30-somethingʼs trek through breast cancer. In addition to screenwriting, Ellen is a social scientist with a new book titled Making It: Success in the Commercial Kitchen out now with Rutgers University Press.
V.P. Walling is a Florida-raised, U. of Michigan-educated writer-actor, who works in Hollywood, New York, and London. In addition to acting (Blindspot; Manscaped spokesperson), V.P. has been a creative executive for Andrew W. Marlowe’s Thornhurst, associate producer (Terri Edda Miller’s Dysenchanted; Green Day’s American Idiot on Broadway), copywriter of film and television titles & taglines, and various other side gigs and hustles. V.P.’s solo screenplay SKULK (2024 Austin Film Festival), inspired by working and living in the infamous Dakota building during the pandemic, is making the rounds, as are stage play PROJECTOR (2020 Screencraft Finalist) and original musical GERUND: THE MUSICALIZING, featuring music by Chris Trapper. V.P. also co-authors the Gen-X romantic comedy series K.I.T. with Marie Williams.
Mark S Wilson survived testicular cancer, social media, and a decade in rural Alaska, and is now living his best life as a queer writer and educator in LA. He’s written and directed short films showcasing both dramatic and camp sensibilities and premiering at festivals across the country. His essay “Me and a Gun” appeared in The Los Angeles Review and became a catalyst for his move to LA, where he earned an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA in 2020.
