Spotlight (2015), the winner of the Oscars' best picture in 2016, is among the most acclaimed films with screenplays on The Black List. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Seeing The Black List going viral and realizing its value, Leonard turned it into an annual survey, which now reaches around 650 film executives who are behind about 90 percent of all Hollywood movies. It has also soared to become an influential index to help Hollywood decision-makers cut the time it takes to find potentially lucrative stories.

For the executives who are busy dealing with selecting screenplays, Leonard says their job is "a little like walking into a members-only bookstore filled with exclusive titles, where the entire inventory is organized alphabetically and every book has the same nondescript cover.

"The Writers Guild of America registers some 50,000 new pieces of material every year, and most of those are screenplays," he says.

And only 10 percent, or 5,000, of such screenplays are filtered to be read by those in high positions in major studios or big production companies, which produce around 300 features every year, says Leonard.

To date, more than 300 screenplays on The Black List have been made into feature films, grossing a total of more than $26 billion in worldwide box-office takings, and bagging 264 Academy Awards and 48 Oscars.

Among the most acclaimed screenplays are the Oscars' best picture winners Slumdog Millionaire (2008), The King's Speech (2010), Argo (2012) and Spotlight (2015).

Despite the Beijing event marking Leonard's first visit to China, he has been paying attention to Hollywood's increasing interest in the Chinese market for its huge annual output and growing box-office revenue.

"I think the United States is still trying to figure out the pass code to the Chinese market," he says, adding they have yet to obtain a successful formula.

But he believes cinema has a distinctive charm that helps transport an audience across borders, which is the key to making appealing movies.

"I grew up in a small town. What is most interesting for me is that through watching films, I can go anywhere in the world or in space," says Leonard.

"I cannot board a plane to China every day, but I can go to the cinema or turn on my television to watch great films about China. I'm really looking forward to seeing more films about China and Chinese life," says Leonard, who is also a fan of Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Wong Kar-wai.