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In The News
For Immediate Release GREENLIGHT'S A GO – THOUSANDS SUBMIT SCRIPTS TO WORLD'S LARGEST ACTIVE ONLINE SCREENWRITING COMMUNITY Contest From the Creators of "Good Will Hunting" Begins Process of Finding the Creator of the Greenlight film LOS ANGELES, CA - Nov. 9, 2000 -- Project Greenlight, a first-of-its-kind venture from Miramax Films & TV, HBO and LivePlanet, received entries from more than 10,000 people during its four-week screenplay submission phase, it was announced today by Chris Moore, CEO of LivePlanet, and Billy Campbell, president of Miramax Television. The instant success of Project Greenlight makes it the largest active screenwriting community in the world, with more than 40,000 members who joined at www.projectgreenlight.com. The Greenlight community and executives are poised to begin the process of selecting a winning script. "When we made Good Will Hunting, people were fascinated by the story about how Matt and Ben were taken out of nowhere and got to make the movie they wrote. It will be an interesting plot to show what happens when we give a similar chance to someone new," said Chris Moore. "We have guaranteed that we will make the winning script into a film, but Greenlight is even more than that. Greenlight is a community where filmmakers can read each other's work, share experiences and collaborate with one another. That all adds up to the discovery of a lot of good ideas, helping out a lot of people." "Although the submission portion of the contest has come to an end, the real fun of the Greenlight experience is just getting started," said Billy Campbell, president of Miramax Television. "The Greenlight community will rally behind one script or another, and those writers will be in the spotlight-characters will soon begin to emerge, and real-life plots will thicken. All of this means that the Greenlight community will have the opportunity to participate in a revolutionary process – both in the documentary and on film." In the next phase of the contest, the Greenlight community will narrow the contestant pool from over 10,000 to 250. Members of the Greenlight community, both contestants and registered reviewers, will evaluate and provide feedback on the screenplays; these evaluations will determine the final 250 screenplays in the contest. Because each amateur filmmaker who submits a script must review at least three others, each script will have received at least three peer reviews. After the winner is selected, all other screenwriters will get to see the feedback given to their script. "Greenlight will be giving the aspiring filmmakers in the contest attention they would not have received otherwise-Matt and I feel that that the karma of that is really appropriate given how we launched our careers with Good Will Hunting," said Ben Affleck, co-founder of LivePlanet and an executive producer of the Greenlight film. "Everyone in the contest gets feedback on their work, and the scripts that make it to the final rounds can be read by thousands of people-who knows who might be paying attention? Greenlight can take access to filmmaking out of the hands of seven executives in a Hollywood boardroom and put it into the hands of people everywhere who love movies." Amateur screenwriters aged 18 years and older were invited to submit their original screenplays electronically to www.projectgreenlight.com from September 25 through October 22. Not only will Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Chris Moore executive produce this film, but Miramax is providing the winning contestant or team with a $1 million production budget, hiring them to direct the film, and guaranteeing to distribute the film in theatres. At the same time, Miramax Television is chronicling the making of the movie in a 13-episode television documentary series that will take an insider's look at the moviemaking process, slated to air on HBO in Winter 2002. "We couldn't be happier about our first collaboration with HBO," said Billy Campbell, president of Miramax Television. "The series will give millions of people a chance to be a part of this exciting experience."
About Project Greenlight |
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