Spec Script Deals Analysis 2015: First-Timers
As we continue our analysis of spec script sales in 2015, today we check out the first-timers, writers who broke into the business by setting up a spec script.
The Search — Spenser Mondshein / Voltage Pictures — 1/12/15
An expert tracker battles his demons while on a journey to rescue his estranged older brother, who has vanished in the wilderness of the Northwest.
Bismarck — Jared Cowie / Universal Pictures — 2/4/15
During the darkest hours of WWII, a British naval officer, raw from the loss of his ship, is thrust into the thick of the hunt for the most formidable Nazi battleship to ever set sail: the Bismarck.
Smoke — Max Vaney, Luke Goltz / Relativity Media — 2/24/15
It’s set in the Miami Vice1980s era in South Beach. Spec tells the true story of Joey Ippolito, who was one of the world’s top speedboat racers. No one in the South Beach socialite crowd knew, however, that he was also running one of the biggest cocaine smuggling operations out of the U.S.
Undone — Melissa London Hilfers / Parkes+MacDonald and Black Bear Pictures — 3/9/15
A popular podcast brings a strange, decades-old murder case into the spotlight and leads to a re-investigating of the thirty-five year old murder case, One of the nations top litigators fights to free the man the entire country believes was wrongly convicted, until she begins to suspect her own past might be the key to the murder itself.
Proxima — Chris Hager / Rumble Films — 3/20/15
A sci-fi drama is about a married couple on a centuries-long mission across the universe.
The Longest Birthday — Savion Einstein / Victoria Films — 9/19/15
A mother and her son, who is dying from terminal cancer, travel from Israel to Los Angeles to make his last birthday the best, as well as the longest due to their traveling across time zones.
The Wind at Spanish Needle — Simon Nagle / White Horse Pictures — 9/23/15
An old, blind gunslinger treks across the Mojave Desert to a mountain peak in the Sierras to reunite with the love of his life.
Free Agent — Sam Regnier / CBS Films — 10/1/15
A female NBA executive for the Golden State Warriors who pursues the biggest free agent of her career while managing a messy divorce and a complicated relationship with a younger colleague and his teenage sister.
Boomtown — Matt King / Focus Features — 10/8/15
A slick corporate investigator with a closely guarded secret discovers a sinister criminal conspiracy in North Dakota oil boom country.
Congratulations to all the first-timers!
[Note: The list above does not include the many writers who used a spec script to gain representation and/or land an assignment base on their spec as a writing sample.]
That’s it, a full week’s worth of recaps and analysis of the 2015 spec script deals market. Please post your overall reactions and thoughts in comments.
To see all of the posts from this week’s analysis, go here.