Do you think Hollywood needs to change? How about your own industry? It’s difficult to get decision makers to step outside of the tried and true and attempt something new. Franklin Leonard is Founder and CEO of The Black List-- a company that elevates great screenplays and the writers who create them. In this episode, he discusses how he shifted the way Hollywood works and how anyone can catalyze change if they start by questioning whether the conventional wisdom is all convention and no wisdom. More than 400 scripts from the annual Black List survey have been produced as feature films, earning 250 Academy Award nominations and 50 wins, including four of the last ten Best Pictures and ten of the last twenty-two screenwriting Oscars. To learn more about "How to Be a Better Human," host Chris Duffy, or find footnotes and additional resources, please visit: go.ted.com/betterhuman Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Franklin Leonard, the founder of The Black List, joins the conversation to unpack the evolving landscape of screenwriting in Hollywood. He shares insights on the impact of recent strikes and the decline in studio development on aspiring writers. The discussion delves into the challenges of gaining recognition and the rise of biopics in the industry. Leonard emphasizes the importance of nurturing new talent and producing original content. Plus, there’s a fun prediction about the box office performance of the upcoming 'Transformers' film!

This episode originally ran in 2020.In 2005, Franklin Leonard was a junior executive at Leonardo DiCaprio's production company. A big part of his job was to find great scripts. The only thing — most of the 50,000-some scripts registered with the Writers Guild of America every year aren't that great. Franklin was drowning in bad scripts ... So to help find the handful that will become the movies that change our lives, he needed a better way forward.Today on the show — how a math-loving movie nerd used a spreadsheet and an anonymous Hotmail address to solve one of Hollywood's most fundamental problems: picking winners from a sea of garbage. And, along the way, he may just have reinvented Hollywood's power structure.This episode was produced by James Sneed and Darian Woods, and edited by Bryant Urstadt, Karen Duffin and Robert Smith. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Entertainment disrupter Franklin Leonard discusses Hollywood's challenges and solutions. Elon Musk's $45B pay package approval and Paris Olympics' AC controversy are highlighted. Diversity and inclusion issues in Hollywood are explored, emphasizing revenue loss due to biases against minority communities.

Franklin Leonard, founder of The Black List, discusses his revolutionary approach to identifying overlooked screenplays and his new initiative to extend this model to the book industry. He highlights the shared challenges between Hollywood and publishing, such as talent discovery bottlenecks and missed revenue opportunities. Leonard emphasizes the need for diverse voices, the importance of taking calculated risks, and the limitations of AI in creative expression. His insights could redefine how industries discover and nurture talent.