Scoggins spec script market report (year-to-date)

Jason Scoggins is back with another spec script market report. Some highlights:

As much as I love the summer weather we’re enjoying in Los Angeles, I’m very much looking forward to September. After all, the combination of strong year-over-year box office results and the end of the recession can only mean the return of a vibrant spec market after Memorial Day, right? I know there are plenty more ancient toy and videogame properties to exploit, and sequels, remakes and reboots are here to stay (see Michael Adams’ commentary on this topic here, at TheWrap.com), but with the spec market so slow for the first half of 2009 and the mother of all strikes potentially looming in 2011, I expect the studios to start stocking up on original material again this Fall. (Knock wood.)

Meanwhile, the post-Independence Day slow-down has officially begun, as you can see from the numbers for July, below. Almost no material has been brought to market so far this month, and since the last Scorecard (June 15) there has been literally no improvement in the spec market: 32 scripts went wide in the last 30 days, none of which have sold. As I noted in the Spec Market Roundup for June a week or so ago, only 1 of the (now) 73 specs that have gone wide in the last 10 weeks have sold.

As a screenwriter, it’s easy to freak out about a soft spec script market. But as I noted here, the history of the spec script marketplace over the last 2 decades has proven to be cyclical, depending upon the calendar, economics, the mood of the town, and the quality (or lack of quality) of the scripts flowing into the acquisition process. I’m with Jason. Once the fall hits, I suspect the numbers of sales will rise dramatically.