WIGS Partners with The Black List to Find New Series Writers

Digital studio WIGS, a FOX series incubator for female-targeted scripted drama, has partnered with script site The Black List on an initiative to identify one writer to develop a series. Founded by Jon Avnet (Black Swan, Fried Green Tomatoes, Risky Business), Rodrigo Garcia (Albert Nobbs, IN TREATMENT, BIG LOVE) and Jake Avnet, WIGS is the first digital studio to make a deal with the screenplay database.

As part of this novel partnership, The Black List will solicit teleplays to be evaluated by its community of industry professionals and readers, sharing with WIGS a short list of five writers for consideration for a digital series script deal.

Interested writers can submit material starting today at www.blcklst.com/WIGS. The submission window will be open through Tuesday, May 6. The site includes a complete list of rules, additional information and submission guidelines.

The Black List is an online community where content creators can find scripts to make, and writers can find producers, studios and networks to produce their scripts. Since launching in October 2012, The Black List has hosted more than 11,000 screenplays and teleplays and completed more than 14,000 script evaluations. Dozens of writers have found representation, sales and options, via the site since its launch. At any given time, The Black List hosts more than 2,200 screenplays and teleplays for perusal by thousands of film and television industry professionals, ranging from agency assistants to studio and network heads.

Launched in May 2012 by writer/director/producers Jon Avnet, Rodrigo Garcia and Jake Avnet, WIGS has created over 150 episodes of scripted content, including 15 high-end original series, seven short films and 10 documentaries, all starring female leads. Popular series from WIGS include BLUE, starring Julia Stiles as a single mother trying to protect her son from the consequences of her secret career as an upscale escort.

"We're very excited to leverage The Black List to open up our development process to a new group of writers, and hopefully discover our next great series creator," said WIGS Chief Operating Officer Jake Avnet.

"The business of scripted entertainment is changing rapidly, and it's a great joy to be partners with one of the great success stories of that change thus far," said The Black List founder Franklin Leonard. "Developing a series for this award-winning and quickly expanding multi-platform drama studio is an enormous opportunity for experienced and relatively new screenwriters alike, and we're incredibly excited to be facilitating something like this with such a forward-thinking partner, particularly one targeting an audience typically underserved in the digital space."

In addition to WIGS, The Black List is currently partnered with the Writers Guild of America, East; the Writers Guild of America, West; the Sundance Institute; Warner Bros. Pictures; TNT and TBS.