Every year, a dude named Frank Leonard puts out the Black List, a list of the best unproduced screenplays going around town, as voted on by Hollywood types. You’d expect them to highlight scripts like Being John Malkovich, a work of genius that had been going around for years that everyone loved but no one knew how to make. Instead, in typical Hollywood fashion, it seems to have become a list of scripts that everyone knows a studio is going to make anyway and might become hits, thus becoming a list of scripts people bet on so they can brag about how smart they are later (you can see the most recent list here).

One such blacklist script, The Ex-Factor, recently picked up Ken Jeong as star and producer, and has since been titled “The Chung Factor.” IT SOUNDS GREAT BECAUSE WE’VE SEEN IT BEFORE!

The movie is about a nice guy who meets the girl of his dreams after being unlucky in love. But because he’s afraid of screwing up the relationship, he takes advice from an offbeat relationship coach, played by Jeong.
As it turns out, the coach is actually the woman’s ex-boyfriend and is out to sabotage the relationship and win her back.
The script, formerly called “The Ex-Factor,” was on the 2005 Black List of best unproduced scripts. [TheWrap]

It’s Hitch meets Something About Mary with an Asian twist! It’ll be like that South Park episode where Cartman gives Jimmy advice through a headset while he’s out on a date! Except without all the jokes about how that concept is 30 years old! You screamed when Will Smith taught Kevin James how to dance… You delighted when Sinbad taught Phil Hartman to loosen up… This summer, you’ll squeal when Ken Jeong teaches Zach Braff math.

I think the most surprising part of this story is that a rom-com script called “The Ex-Factor” was only six years old.