Spec Script Sale: “Imagine”

Per Deadline, Warner Bros. buys comedy spec “Imagine” from writer-soon-to-be-director Dan Fogelman:

Usually when writers make their directing debut, they do it at steep discount. Not Dan Fogelman. The writer of such films as Cars, Bolt, Fred Clause and the upcoming Disney animated film Tangled will make his directing debut at Warner Bros on his script Imagine. I’m told that between what Fogelman will get for his script and directing fee, his payday will be north of $3 million. And Steve Carell will star in the film, which is about a musician in his 60s who tries to live his life differently after reading an old letter written to him by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The rocker tries to track down and reconnect with his biological son, whom he has never met. Carell will play the son.

The $3 million deal (it’s that much if the film gets made, the upfront fee was closer to $2 million) makes this one of the biggest spec auction paydays since, well, the auction held at the close of 2009 for Fogelman’s last spec, Crazy, Stupid, Love. That deal, worth $2.5 million deal, closed last January and made it into production almost immediately.

I posted on the sale of Crazy, Stupid, Love here in December 2008. 

Fogelman is repped by WME and Industry.

By my count, this is the 42nd spec script sale of 2010.

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