A young writer is on the run from a street enforcer sworn to kill himself if he fails to kill his victim.

Your villain "distinguishes" the logline, hence, overwhelms the writer. Ergo, like it or not, you've cast him as the main character in the mind of us who have read your logline. That seems to be the consensus impression. It's not what you intend, but there it is.

You are certainly right that villains can be more interesting than the hero. Darth Vader is more interesting than Luke Skywalker. But how does the logline for the first film of the franchise read?

After a spirited farm boy saves a princess from an the evil henchman of a despotic Galactic Empire, he joins forces to destroy the Empire's planet-annihilating Death Star.

The focal point of the logline is Luke, not Darth Vader.

Your villain "distinguishes" the logline, hence, overwhelms the writer. Ergo, like it or not, you've cast him as the main character in the mind of us who have read your logline. That seems to be the consensus impression. It's not what you intend, but there it is.

You are certainly right that villains can be more interesting than the hero. Darth Vader is more interesting than Luke Skywalker. But how does the logline for the first film of the franchise read?

After a spirited farm boy saves a princess from an the evil henchman of a despotic Galactic Empire, he joins forces to destroy the Empire's planet-annihilating Death Star.

The focal point of the logline is Luke, not Darth Vader.

Thanks for the comment Nicholas but why can't the villain be more interesting than the hero? Thrillers depend on unusual villains. The hero always has an arc but why pitch the arc if the villain is what distinguishes the story.