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Publication history

Archived release

Measurement correction

anatomy-of-a-produced-screenplay-2026-08-v3

Introduced measurement-family exclusions. Nell and Memory metadata were later corrected in v4; original histograms did not apply these exclusions.

This is an earlier release. Read the current corrected study.

Published
14/08/2026
Cohort
438 features
Measurement engine
1.5

Inspect the full manifest and checksums (JSON)

Published figures

The original aggregate table, with each measure’s eligible sample. Missing values are unavailable, not zero. The package includes genre and decade tables and code to reproduce them.

MeasureEligible nMedianMiddle half
pages437117106 to 132
scenes41212493 to 162
mean scene eighths4127.15.6 to 9.4
median scene eighths41243 to 5
interior share pct41262.452.18 to 72.6
day share pct3626045.53 to 72.45
unique locations4126245 to 84.25
location changes41210579 to 143
speaking characters4314332 to 58
dialogue blocks437892734 to 1,057
dialogue words4378,6776,621 to 10,501
dialogue action ratio4371.090.74 to 1.58
monologues4371810 to 30
top character pct43127.320.9 to 34.4
dialogue line share pct4373933 to 45
action line share pct4373628 to 44
runtime minutes (modelled estimate)437118108 to 128
parenthetical rate4370.110.06 to 0.16

Reproduce this release

The ZIP contains the original CSV, complete derived rows and aggregate tables, an expanded analysis CSV, manifest, field dictionary, inclusion/exclusion records, measurement guards, checksums, licence and a standalone reproduction script. No screenplay text or private file links are included.

Original files retained unchanged. These releases predate the per-record metadata review ledger; missing historical provenance and incomplete credits are disclosed in the package. Approval preserves the published record and does not certify missing metadata.

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Use this research

The PreList Industry Intelligence. The Anatomy of a Produced Screenplay. Snapshot anatomy-of-a-produced-screenplay-2026-08-v3; cohort n=438, eligible n varies by measure. https://www.theprelist.io/research/versions/anatomy-of-a-produced-screenplay-2026-08-v3

Version details and manifest

Licensed CC BY 4.0: reuse the figures, charts and dataset with attribution and a link back to this page. Snapshot anatomy-of-a-produced-screenplay-2026-08-v3; every number above traces to it.