March 1, 2015
MoviePoet is closed. Wow, that's hard to write.
For many years, MoviePoet was my home on the internet - my second family - and it was awesome.
If you were here during the early days, you know just how special it was. We were a community of writers and friends who cared deeply about the craft of screenwriting and each other.
The stats are amazing: 8 years, 6,422 members, 96 contests, 3,332 entries, 128,633 reviews, and over 300 scripts produced. We never charged a dime, took any advertising, and rarely had to deal with trolls (imagine another web site that can say all that).
I am so proud of all we accomplished and I wish it could go on, but as many of you know, I started NJ Film School a few years ago and it has stolen my heart and all my free time. MoviePoet has been leaderless for too long and I would rather close the site now than watch it die a slow death.
I love you all, but I must give special thanks to all the moderators who helped run the site and kept me sane along the way: William Bienes, Caroline Coxon, Charlie Hebert, Rustom Irani, Rick Hansberry, Sally Meyer, Tim Westland, and JeanPierre Chapoteau - I couldn't have done it without you.
Honestly, I will miss the site terribly and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
Chris Messineo
p.s. A bit of MoviePoet lore, this incarnation of MoviePoet was actually the second version (the first ran from 2002 to 2003). I hope there will be a third some day.