“Unlocking Tinseltown: The Surprising Lessons Behind 5 Blockbuster Spec Sales!”
What Are They Buying
The first thing to do is look at what people are buying, so here we go:
- Alignment by Natan Dotan was purchased preemptively. This means that the script was sent to a select few companies (rather than all over the town in the hopes of creating a bidding war). Fifth Season and Makeready, who made a deal before the script was taken out to a bigger market where they may have to spend even more money to lock it down. Fifth Season bought the script for $1.25 million against $3 million if/when the film is produced. Fifth Season is known for lower-budget/independent projects, but this project looks to expand the kinds of projects the brand is known for going forward. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the script tells the story of a board member at a booming AI company who wrestles with corporate politics and warped incentives as he tries to prevent his colleagues’ willful ignorance from causing a global catastrophe.
- Searchlight Pictures nabbed Clean Break from Ryan Brennan with Scott Free producing. When a fiercely independent pool hustler finally meets her match in a fellow pool shark, their irresistible but destructive attraction to one another leads to deadly consequences she can’t outrun. This is Brennan’s first major spect sale.
- Original action spec Test Drive by Matt Venne has landed at 20th Century Studios with Safehouse Pictures. According to Deadline, Venne received a solid mid-six figures against a seven-figure deal for the script. Venne is not a new writer having worked in television on Showtime’s Dexter spin-off and previously selling his series Cruel Summer to Legendary TV. He also previously set up the features Black Box at Dark Castle Entertainment and Dark Star at Sugar23.
- Lionsgate locked the rights to the action comedy spec Three Hitmen and a Baby by Dave Matalon and Matt Altman. There isn’t a public logline, but I’m sure you can guess what it’s about from the title. 87North are producing. Matalon previously worked on Totally Killer for Blumhouse and Amazon, and Altman sold a female-driven actioner Red Widow to STX in a bidding war.
- Amazon won the bidding war for Love of Your Life by Julia Cox (who wrote the critically acclaimed NYAD) for around $2 million. Ryan Gosling is attached to produce along with Jessie Henderson through General Admission. The script is about a young woman who loses her young husband and follows her on a journey to regain her foot and find a reason to carry forward, similar in vein to Eat Pray Love.
‘Eat Pray Love’ (2010)
3 Lessons Learned from These Spec Sales
So what trends are we seeing in all of these scripts?
