# Why Hollywood Can't Find Good Scripts Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-journal-547598/why-hollywood-can-t-find-good-scripts Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-journal-547598/why-hollywood-can-t-find-good-scripts.md Podcast: [The Journal.](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-journal-547598) Published: 2026-06-01T20:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/WSJ3214751856.mp3?updated=1780087353 Audio file: https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/WSJ3214751856.mp3?updated=1780087353 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-journal-547598/episodes/why-hollywood-can-t-find-good-scripts Duration seconds: 1330 ## Resource How to get discovered in Hollywood has been a decades-old struggle. For screenwriters, that game started to change when Franklin Leonard launched the Black List, an annual ranking of the “most liked” but not-yet-produced screenplays. Since 2005, more than 500 of those scripts have become feature films, including several Best Picture Oscar-winners. Ryan Knutson interviewed Leonard about how to fix some of Hollywood’s other challenges at our live show in Los Angeles. Further Listening: - Hollywood Jobs Are Disappearing - Inside the Nasty Fight to Take Over Hollywood - The Journal. - For Riz Ahmed, Life is a Spy Thriller Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-journal-547598/episodes/why-hollywood-can-t-find-good-scripts/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-journal-547598/why-hollywood-can-t-find-good-scripts.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.