Contest Update: Congratulations to Our 50 Semifinalists

Amazon Studios is pleased to announce the 50 semifinalists for the December 2010 Best Script Awards, our first ever. Two winning scripts will be announced on Jan. 27 and will receive $20,000 each. More than 2,500 screenplays submitted by writers all over the world have become a part of the Amazon Studios development process since our November 2010 launch. The 50 semifinalists we announce today have been judged to represent the top 2% of all screenplays on the site.

“We are very excited that there are so many strong scripts to choose from and that so many talented writers have embraced the Amazon Studios opportunity,” said Amazon Studios director Roy Price. ”Selecting the winners will not be easy. We hope filmmakers will now take the Amazon Studios development process to the next step by producing a table read or other visualization to compete in our test movie contests. And for anyone whose script is not on this list, I hope they will take heart in the fact that we have a new contest every month. They may just be a polish away.”

The six finalists will be announced on Monday, Jan. 17. Winners will be announced on Jan. 27 after being chosen from the finalists by a judging panel that includes script consultant Linda Seger, author of “Making a Good Script Great,” and Mike Werb, UCLA visiting assistant professor and writer of “Face/Off.”

The semifinalists are:

The Alchemist Agenda by Marty Weiss
America’s Ben Franklin in: The Electrocution String by Jason Ungate
Animal Heads by Alexis Piza
The Bastard by Juan Rodriguez-Briso
Blackburn Burrow by Jay Levy
The Bloodline by Craige Cronin
Buried South of Galatians by Stephen Hoover
Chasing Baby by Roger Tessier
The Christmas Heart by Michael Coady
Cody & The Cubnappers by Bill Schreiber
Comic Heroes by Bruce Silverman
Cracking Wise by Richard Taylor
Don’t Say Anything by Terry Coffey
Eiko by Kenan Brack
E-Town by Nicole Yuhas
Far from Home by Victoria Ellis
A Gentleman’s Game by Kirk W Evans
Golden Gloves by Drew Miyaki
The Guilt Offering by Jerry Johnson
HeartLand by Michael Coady
The Highwaymen by Adira Rotstein
Holy War by Lee Matthias
Homecoming Queen by Brian Dick
The House That Evil Built by Michael Coady
In the Footsteps of Thaddeus Thackeray by Adam McDaniel
Jinxed by Michael Coady
Lab 7 by Bill Mesce, Jr.
The Last Story by Catherine A. Cyran
Legends of the Menehune by Rich Figel
The Life and Death of Dr. Fritz Gerlich by Paul Alexander Clingan
Malabo by Thomas J. Trappler
Marlowe by Julia Macmillan
Memory by Alexander Greenfield
The Milkman by Michael Coady
The Ministry by Marcos Soriano
Monster Mash by Anthony Lacey
Moving to Montana by Adam Levine
No Shelter by Dewey Yeatts
The Oil Man by David Harris
The Pass by Jack Picone
Raven Feather by Kent B Jameson
The Stuff of Dreams by Alexander D. Grattan
Survival by Dan Hall
Tijuana by Lindsay Norgard
Vamped! by Stephen Hoover
Vargus by William Long
Villain by Richard Stern
Water & Power by Ian Roumain
Wish Me on My Way by Kergan Edwards Stout
Zombie Robots by David Borcherding