2009 OWA Scorecard - Overview Grids

Below is my article for this week's Business of Show Institute newsletter.  It's basically the overview grids from the full 2009 OWA Scorecard I released this week (if you haven't gotten your own copy of the PDF yet, it's available over at http://blog.itsonthegrid.com), with opening remarks targeted at aspiring entertainment professionals.  

*****

On “Getting It”
By Jason Scoggins
February 10, 2010


Below are the summary grids I put together for my 2009 OWA Scorecard project.  They’re in the same vein as the 2009 Spec Market Scorecard, in that they show the overall numbers of the various buyers’ open writing assignment activity throughout last year.  These grids are part of the full 2009 OWA Scorecard that is available to anyone who signs up to receive it at http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.  Before I get to the numbers, though, I wanted to take a minute to talk about why this kind of information is as important to aspiring entertainment industry professionals as it is to people already working in the business.

One of the things I love most about the entertainment business is how remarkably different its rhythms and processes and customs are from other industries.  It’s difficult to understand just how peculiar this business really is, to “get it,” unless you take the time to study how the business works.  For most of us, our period of study took the form of entry-level positions as assistants to writers and filmmakers and reps and executives.  By the time we start to ascend the ladder, the business has been baked into us (think industrial forges and “trials by fire”); we get it, and we can tell within a few minutes of talking to someone new whether they get it or not as well.  And one of the things that make the industry so hard to break into is the sad but true fact that many people inside the business have the attitude that if you don’t get it, you’re a waste of their time, even if you’re a writer, and even if you’re just starting out.

So getting it is unequivocally important; it can make the difference between being dismissed out of hand and landing your first paying gig.  And that’s where companies like The Business of Show Institute and services like http://www.itsonthegrid.com come in.  The more information you know about the business (how it works, who’s where and what they’re working on), the more you will come across as a potential peer – someone worth working with, or (knock wood) hiring.

With that in mind, take a look at the below grids.  They were eye opening for me, someone who’s been in and around the business for going on 15 years, and they’re going to be just as instructional for you. 


2009 OWA Scorecard – Overview Grids

As you review the below numbers, remember they are based solely on one big agency’s OWA grids, with snapshots taken at six different points throughout 2009.  (For a refresher on my methodology, take a look at my first article on this topic here.)  Obviously, there are a number of projects that did not appear on those grids for one reason or another, and therefore the actual number of projects in active development last year is some percentage higher.  What’s most interesting here (to me, at least) is the scale of the numbers and the comparison between the companies, as opposed to the raw numbers themselves.

MAJOR STUDIOS	On in April	Added	Closed	On in Dec	Total	On all year
Columbia	36	29	41	24	65	9
Disney	15	14	14	15	29	6
Fox	14	24	21	17	37*	2
Paramount	38	47	47	38	85	7
Universal	55	60	52	63	115	23
Warner Bros.	71	79	59	91	150	31
TOTALS	229	253	234	248	481	78

The big reason to separate the above six companies from their subsidiaries and the mini-majors is to make it easier to rank the majors by last year’s OWA activity, as well as to see just how big the differences were between them.  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the efficacy of having 85 or more (much more, in the case of Warner Bros. and Universal) projects in active development at a time.  Interestingly, the above rankings generally followed the rankings from the 2009 Spec Market Scorecard:  Universal and Warner Bros. bought the most specs last year (6 each), followed by Columbia and Paramount (5 each), with Disney and Fox bringing up the rear (2 and 3, respectively).

MINI-MAJORS & STUDIOS’ LABELS	On in April	Added	Closed	On in Dec	Total	On all year
CBS Films	3	7	4	6	10	1
Dimension	8	4	5	7	12	4
DreamWorks	4	12	11	5	16	0
DreamWorks Animation	5	9	9	5	14	0
Focus Features	4	8	2	10	12	3
Fox 2000	8	8	11	5	16	1
Fox Animation	2	5	3	4	6*	0
Fox Searchlight	6	5	3	8	11	2
Lionsgate	6	11	11	6	14*	0
Mandate Pictures	3	1	3	1	4	1
MGM	2	4	1	5	6	1
Miramax	4	1	4	1	5	1
New Line	10	8	12	6	18	0
New Regency	7	13	10	10	20	0
Screen Gems	3	6	7	2	9	0
Sony Pictures – Stage 6	0	4	2	2	4	0
Sony Pictures Animation	1	4	1	4	5	0
Summit	5	5	7	3	10	0
The Weinstein Co.	12	1	6	7	13	6
TOTALS	93	116	112	97	205	20

With a couple of notable exceptions, the hallmark of the above group is their efficiency in terms of filling their open writing assignments.  If you remove those 3 outliers, just 10% of these companies’ OWAs were on the grid for the entire year (7 out of 69 projects). 

OTHER BUYERS	On in April	Added	Closed	On in Dec	Total	On all year
Cartoon Network Movies	3	2	3	2	5	0
Film Dept.	1	3	0	4	4	1
Gold Circle Films	6	1	4	3	7	2
Illumination Entertainment	2	3	3	2	5	0
Overture	1	2	1	2	3	0
Participant	1	8	3	6	9	0
Relativity	0	4	2	2	4	0
Spitfire	2	3	1	4	5	1
Spyglass	1	4	3	2	5	1
Walden Media	3	6	6	3	9	0
TOTALS	20	36	26	30	56	5

TOTALS	On in April	Added	Closed	On in Dec	Total	On all year
Major Studios	229	253	234	248	481	78
Mini-Majors and Studios’ Labels	93	116	112	97	205	20
Other Buyers	20	36	26	30	56	5
TOTALS	342	405	372	375	742	104

While it’s tempting to think in “glass half empty” terms (a pretty small group of professional writers got writing assignments in Hollywood last year compared to, say, the active WGA membership as a whole), the above numbers are pretty encouraging when you consider how few films these companies have been producing annually for the past several years.  In my spec market reports last year, I took a number of potshots at the studios for not buying more original material.  I still believe bringing original material and new voices into the system is vitally important to the health of the business as a whole, but now that I’ve seen the above numbers, the subdued pace of 2009’s spec purchases makes more sense.

Perhaps the thing to focus on going forward is the percentage of projects at each company that were on the grid throughout 2009.  Here’s the breakdown, the alphabetical order:  Columbia – 25%; Disney – 40%; Fox – 14%; Paramount – 18%; Universal – 42%; Warner Bros. – 44%. 

Food for thought.


About The Scoggins Reports:
The Scoggins Reports (Jason Scoggins’ Spec Market Roundup, Spec Market Scorecard and now this OWA Scorecard) are terribly unscientific analyses of the feature film development business based on information culled from a variety of public and non-public sources.  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://bit.ly/2HRZ67) as well as on Scoggins’ website:  http://www.lifeonthebubble.com. Past editions of the OWA Scorecards can be found at http://blog.itsonthegrid.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 recently launched by Scoggins and several other literary managers.  For daily posts of new and updated spec script, OWA and ODA information, check out the IOTG blog here:  http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.

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.  Click here to follow him on Twitter.