• Visit the new Stan Store @ ⁠⁠stan.store/blacklisted⁠⁠

• Subscribe to our extended interviews on Spotify ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

What happens when the line between life and art disappears completely?

That's exactly what happened to today's guest, Julia Yorks, writer of the 2024 Black List script The 7 Guys You Date Before Marriage, about a newly single woman diving back into the dating pool after the collapse of a ten-year relationship.

Here's the twist: that exact heartbreak happened to her between the first and second drafts.

She's been remarkably open about it, chronicling the whole thing for her 75K+ followers across social media.

But this isn't just a story about heartbreak; Julia just sold the project to Sony.

Find out how she turned tears into a sale in today's interview.

Guest: Julia Yorks on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠X and TikTok⁠

Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Hill⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BlueSky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠storyandplot.com/blacklisted⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for a 10% discount on Tom Vaughan's fantastic screenwriting courses.

Useful links:

ScriptWell: The Community for Screenwriters

Go Into The Story: Interview

Eat, Cry, Write - by Julia Yorks (Substack)

Shyamalan's 'The Happening' Deserves Another Chance - Den of Geek

Jack Reacher and Sandy Hook - Guardian

• Visit the new Stan Store @ ⁠stan.store/blacklisted⁠

• Subscribe to our extended interviews on Spotify ⁠here⁠.

How do you land a spot on the annual Black List without an agent or manager? Just ask this week's guest, Richard Martin.

Richard cracked the 2025 Black List with Geezers — a slasher set in a Florida retirement complex. Think Golden Girls meets Scream. Or, put another way: how would Blanche deal with Ghostface? Fun!

After earning his master's at USC, Richard spent a decade as a development exec at Bad Hat Harry Productions, shepherding projects from studio tentpoles like X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past to indie horror gems like The Taking of Deborah Logan. He's since moved into directing and producing — helming Hulu's horror-comedy series Spooked — and picked up a ScreenCraft Grand Prize along the way.

Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Richard Martin on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠X⁠⁠

Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Hill⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BlueSky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠storyandplot.com/blacklisted⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for a 10% discount on Tom Vaughan's fantastic screenwriting courses.

Useful links:

Jamie Lee Curtis presents GEEZERS - Black List

Save The Cat

Michael Arndt - Story Structure Videos

• Visit the new Stan Store @ stan.store/blacklisted

• Subscribe to our extended interviews on Spotify here.

In our season three premiere, we speak to screenwriter Allison Lee, whose biopic Oh Yoko! landed on the 2025 Black List, the annual survey of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays.

The script traces Yoko Ono's path from her birth in war-torn Tokyo to her emergence as a groundbreaking modern artist in New York, before her life is upended by a whirlwind romance with John Lennon that would brand her as the "witch" who broke up the Beatles in the eyes of the public.

Lee, who has also adapted Maurene Goo's novel Throwback and developed projects for Netflix Animation, Amazon, and AMC, talks candidly about the personal stakes of the project — including writing an outline for the script without telling her own representatives, drawn to a story she "just couldn't let go" of despite the complicated rights landscape surrounding the Beatles' legacy.

Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Allison Lee on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠X⁠

Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Hill⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BlueSky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠storyandplot.com/blacklisted⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for a 10% discount on Tom Vaughan's fantastic screenwriting courses.

Useful links:

• Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind - Special Exhibition @ The Broad
• Why We Write: Allison Lee
• Black List 2025 - The Hollywood Reporter
• Allison Lee: Film Independent
• ⁠Allison Lee: Sundance Advisor
• Allison Lee - Creative Screenwriting Interview

What does it take to write one of the biggest movies in Netflix history — from scratch?

This week, we sit down with screenwriter T.J. Fixman, the man behind Carry-On — the Christmas action thriller that broke Netflix records, racked up over 172 million views, and sparked a genuine cultural debate: is this the new Die Hard?

Before he was writing Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman into one of the most-watched original films on the planet, Fixman was crafting narratives for video games — most notably the beloved Ratchet & Clank franchise. So how does a game writer crack Hollywood's most coveted genre: the contained, high-concept, race-against-the-clock thriller?

We also talk about the Die Hard question, building a villain you never quite see, writing Christmas into the DNA of an action film without making it a gimmick — and what's coming next with his new project The Seventh Man.

If you've ever stared at a blank page wondering how a single high-concept idea becomes a global phenomenon, this one's for you.

Useful Links:

Carry-On on Netflix

Most Popular Movies on Netflix - Carry-On at #3

Seventh Man sells to United Artists - Variety

In this bonus episode, host Chris Hill sits down with David Boxerbaum, partner at Verve Talent & Literary Agency and one of the most respected literary agents working in the spec script market today. Named to The Hollywood Reporter's "Next Generation 35 Under 35" at just 26 years old, Boxerbaum has built his reputation on landing six-and seven-figure spec sales for his clients — and he's not done yet.

Useful Links:

'Don't Go In The Water' sells to Universal - Deadline

Chris Pine to star in Netflix survival thriller 'Yeti'

Python Thriller Spec 'Crush' sells to 20th - Deadline

Skydance buys short story 'Drift' for $2M+

'Cola Wars' Pitch sells to Sony - Deadline

Apatow and Spielberg attached to 'Cola Wars' - Deadline

Veteran lit agent joins Verve - Variety

In 2022, the script that rose to the very top of the Black List was Pure, a psychological horror-thriller about a woman whose obsession with food purity unravels into madness at her sister's destination wedding. The writer was Catherine Schetina, best known for her work on the acclaimed Hulu drama The Bear.

The manager behind her? Jon Hersh.

Jon founded Night Drive Management in 2017 with one clear mission: find bold voices with incendiary material.

Since then, he's built a roster of writers and writer-directors whose work has landed at Universal, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Lionsgate, Paramount Players, AMC, and beyond — and whose scripts have become a regular fixture on the Black List year after year.

In this episode, Jon pulls back the curtain on what it actually takes to compete at the highest level of the spec market.

Jon also reflects on his path from story analyst at CAA to development executive at Broad Green Pictures before ultimately founding his own company, and what each stop taught him about the business of discovering and developing great writers.

Useful links:

"Pure" tops the Black List in 2022.

Night Drive Management Website.

Yoko Ono Biopic, "Oh Yoko!", lands on Black List 2025.

Short Story "Carrier" Sells to New Regency.

Before Allan was helping run production at one of Hollywood's most storied companies (Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment), he was a kid in the mailroom at Endeavor — sorting packages, learning the rhythm of the industry from the ground up. This week, he traces the full arc: from assistant at Fox 2000, to VP at Hugh Jackman's SEED Productions, to nearly a decade building a slate at Star Thrower Entertainment that quietly became one of the most enviable track records in the business.

We dig into the story of how Allan discovered Nora Garrett's spec After the Hunt — and what it took to recognize the material before anyone else did. Because that call paid off: the script sold to Amazon-MGM with Julia Roberts attached and Luca Guadagnino (Challengers) set to direct. Allan breaks down the anatomy of that discovery — what he saw on the page, how the package came together, and what a sale like that actually feels like from the inside.

We also get into the credits that shaped how he works: producing King Richard (Oscar winner, Warner Bros.), shepherding The Post alongside Steven Spielberg, landing Fair Play at Sundance and watching Netflix acquire it out of the festival, and the quiet cult success of No One Will Save You for Hulu and 20th Century. Plus: Ingrid Goes West, which took home Best First Feature at the Spirit Awards, and 8-Bit Christmas, for which he earned a PGA nomination.

Useful Links:

Imagine Entertainment

Star Thrower Entertainment

Nora Garrett Interview - IndieWire

After The Hunt - Deadline Article

Fair Play Sells to Netflix - Variety

Fair Play Sale - THR

The Post Director/Cast Announcement - Deadline

Amy Pascal Buys Spec Script, The Post - Deadline