Spec Market Roundup - October 2009

Spec Market Roundup:  October 2009
By Jason Scoggins
November 5, 2009


The new normal.  That's how I've started to think about the state of the spec market.   Roughly the same number of scripts (44, on average) have come out in each of the last 5 selling months (that is, not including July and August), and roughly the same number (5) have sold (including the summer, interestingly) each month since May.  I'll have updated month-by-month breakdowns in the next Spec Market Scorecard.  For now, here are October's core numbers:

• 46 new specs hit the market, 5 of which sold
• 40 of the 46 went out wide, 1 of which sold

No surprise, the demise of the wide spec continues unabated.  Just 3 out of the 160 scripts that went wide between May 1 and October 31 have sold.  I'm getting as tired of that statistic as you probably are, but I'll soldier on with it through the end of the year.

What was interesting about October was the wild fluctuation in the number of specs that came out each week, as you can see from the below breakdown.  The trend seems to be continuing in November:  As of this writing, just 2 specs had come out in the first week of November, but I assume another dozen or so will come out next week (unless the holiday break comes early this year).

Weekly Spec Script Breakdown:

Week of September 28:

• 3 scripts went wide but didn't sell
• 1 additional sale were reported

Week of October 5:

• 16 scripts went wide, none of which have sold
• 1 additional sale was reported

Week of October 12:

• 4 scripts went wide, none of which have sold
• 1 script went to select producers but didn't sell
• No additional sales were reported

Week of October 19:

• 5 scripts went wide, none of which have sold
• 1 script went to select producers but has not sold
• 1 additional sale was reported

Week of October 26:

• 12 scripts went wide, 1 of which sold
• 1 additional sale was reported

Genre Breakdown, Attachments

2 – Adventure
2 – Comedy
1 – Thriller

Producers continued to be the common denominator among the month's sales, and two had director elements as well; see project details, below.


Buyers and Sellers

From the outside looking in, last month's purchases were fairly straightforward.  Each of the five purchases was made by major studios or their labels:  One each for Disney, DreamWorks, Fox, Paramount and Screen Gems.  The producers associated with each of them were, respectively:  Millar/Gough, Pariah, Chernin, Benderspink and Rainforest Films.  Of note was the Fox/Chernin project (Sam Laybourne's "Rehab," out from UTA), which was that production company's first since spooling up from scratch over the summer.

On the reps' side, the agents were the usual suspects:  One sale each for Gersh, Original Artists (which set up a pitch with DreamWorks Studios the same day they sold Richard Blaney & Alex Gregory's spec script "Someone In The Dark" to the company, with Gavin Polone and Marc Haimes producing and Carlos Brooks directing), UTA and WME. 

There was one newcomer to my managers' grid in October (Sukee Chew's Hopscotch Pictures, which set up Jordan & Aaron Kandell's "Doginson Crusoe" at Disney), along with two familiar names.  Circle of Confusion helped Gersh land Megan Hinds & Dave Lease's "The Black Phantom" at Screen Gems, with Rob Hardy's Rainforest Films producing and Doug Aarniokoski directing.  And Benderspink, along with WME, set up Marc Haimes' "Jitters!" at Paramount.  Benderspink and Haimes are on separate by equally impressive rolls this year.  In addition to "Jitters!," the company also set up a pitch at DreamWorks last month, which marks 13 pitches and specs they've set up this year as producers.  "Jitters!" is Haimes' second spec sale of 2009 (J.C. Spink and Charlie Gogolak sold his "Elevator Men" to Summit back in February).


About The Scoggins Reports:
The Scoggins Reports (Jason Scoggins’ monthly Spec Market Report and Spec Market Scorecard, as well as his weekly Spec Market Recap) are terribly unscientific analyses of the feature film spec script market based on information culled from a variety of public and non-public sources.  The numbers do not include pitch sales or the film rights to underlying material.  These are by no means official statistics, merely a fairly complete summary.  Past editions can be found in the archives of The Business of Show Institute (http://www.thebusinessofshowinstitute.com/newsletter/past-newsletters.html) as well as on Scoggins’ website:  http://www.lifeonthebubble.com.  Details on each person, project and company in the Reports can also be found at http://www.itsonthegrid.com, a subscription-supported, web-based database of feature film development information that Jason recently helped launch. 

About Scoggins:
Jason Scoggins is a partner at Protocol, a literary management and production company.  He manages writers, directors and producers of film and TV alongside Protocol’s founding partners Brian Inerfeld and John Ufland.  You can follow his daily posts and tweets here:  http://twitter.com/jscoggins.