Spec Script Sale: “All You Need Is Kill”

As noted here in a report from Deadline Hollywood yesterday, Warner Bros. plunked down 7-figures to buy the action spec adaptation of a Japanese novel “All You Need Is Kill”:

The world of Japanese literature can be alienating to western readers — primarily, I suppose, because most of it’s in Japanese. But there are gems to be found, and Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novel is one of them. All You Need is Kill follows one young soldier — recruited to fight an alien invasion — who cannot die. Actually, he can die…and does, on the battlefield, every day, only to wake up every morning to do it all over again. And, each new day finds this recruit getting stronger and smarter — until he figures out how to stop the cycle.

Groundhog Day meets Rambo. The really unusual thing about this deal is not the 7-figures as it seems like Warner Bros. makes this kind of big purchase a few times every year; it’s that the screenwriter adapted the novel into a screenplay on spec:

Originally published in Japan by Shueisha and imported by VIZ Media’s Haikasoru imprint, Kill was adapted by Dante Harper — who most recently tackled Disney’s upcoming Black Hole remake and who took a gamble and wrote Kill on spec, only to reap a seven-figure payday. So pleased were Warner with Harper’s script that they agreed to a clause in the contract that would all but demand that All You Need is Kill would start shooting within a year.

Very rare to see someone spec a book adaptation. A check of IMDB reveals Harper has no produced writing credits, so perhaps therefore the thinking was that he had to write the script on spec to ‘prove’ to buyers what the story could be when fully fleshed out as a completed screenplay. Certainly appears to have paid off handsomely for Harper — so kudos to him!

Harper is repped by CAA and Management 360.

By my count, this is the 11th spec script sold in 2010.

Comment Archive