Hi,

Franklin Leonard is creator of the Black List: a high-profile list of producers’ favorite unproduced screenplays that recirculates Hollywood’s best work among gatekeepers.

The Black List is where producers find their next winner: four of the last 10 Best Picture and 10 of the last 22 Best Screenplay Academy Award winners were on the Black List. And its movies generate 90 percent more revenue than non-listed films with similar budgets.

He’s expanded the Black List to include a screenplay marketplace that opens doors for diverse talent without traditional access to producers.

Leonard spoke with Kara Swisher on Recode Decode about why he thinks greed can combat Hollywood’s bias against women and people of color. These screenplays and films consistently overperform expectations. The most data-driven operations, like Netflix, have noticed this and are investing.

We’re excited to announce Leonard will be joining us as a Code Spotlight speaker. Spotlights feature a diverse cast of innovators with bold new ideas about tech, business, and society.

You can join us May 26-28 for that talk and many more at Code’s new location: The Beverly Hilton and Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills, California.