In 2022, the script that rose to the very top of the Black List was Pure, a psychological horror-thriller about a woman whose obsession with food purity unravels into madness at her sister's destination wedding. The writer was Catherine Schetina, best known for her work on the acclaimed Hulu drama The Bear.

The manager behind her? Jon Hersh.

Jon founded Night Drive Management in 2017 with one clear mission: find bold voices with incendiary material.

Since then, he's built a roster of writers and writer-directors whose work has landed at Universal, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Lionsgate, Paramount Players, AMC, and beyond — and whose scripts have become a regular fixture on the Black List year after year.

In this episode, Jon pulls back the curtain on what it actually takes to compete at the highest level of the spec market.

Jon also reflects on his path from story analyst at CAA to development executive at Broad Green Pictures before ultimately founding his own company, and what each stop taught him about the business of discovering and developing great writers.

Useful links:

"Pure" tops the Black List in 2022.

Night Drive Management Website.

Yoko Ono Biopic, "Oh Yoko!", lands on Black List 2025.

Short Story "Carrier" Sells to New Regency.