The Anatomy of a Produced Screenplay
Published by The PreList

Current published release.
Sample: 428 produced feature screenplays, 2000-2026. Eligible samples vary by measure.

PDF pages: median 117; middle half 106 to 131; eligible n=428.
PDF pages include covers and other front matter.
https://www.theprelist.io/research/screenplay-length

Scenes: median 124; middle half 93 to 162; eligible n=401.
Scenes are detected from screenplay scene headings.
https://www.theprelist.io/research/screenplay-scenes

Dialogue lines per action line: median 1.13; middle half 0.77 to 1.59; eligible n=395.
This compares rendered lines, not words or screen time.
https://www.theprelist.io/research/screenplay-dialogue

Named locations: median 62; middle half 45 to 84; eligible n=401.
Normalised names in scene headings, not a count of filming sites.
https://www.theprelist.io/research/screenplay-locations

Detected speaking characters: median 42; middle half 31 to 54; eligible n=233.
Detected cues include minor speaking parts and can contain extraction errors.
https://www.theprelist.io/research/screenplay-characters

These findings describe this sample. They are not targets, quality scores or predictions of success.
Release: anatomy-of-a-produced-screenplay-2026-09-v5
Evidence: https://www.theprelist.io/research/versions/anatomy-of-a-produced-screenplay-2026-09-v5
Methods and limitations: https://www.theprelist.io/research/methodology
Credit: The PreList. Licensed CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Screenplay text and third-party imagery are excluded from this licence.
Research enquiries and corrections: enquiries@teamprelist.com