Spec Script Sale: “Sorta Like a Rock Star”

Fox Searchlight acquires the drama spec script “Sorta Like a Rock Star” written by Amanda Harwood and Laura Sandler, based on a Matthew Quick novel. From Deadline:

The protagonist is Amber Appleton, a high school senior who secretly lives in the back of a school bus, a situation that arose when her mother’s boyfriend kicked them out. The bus (they call it Hello Yellow) is the same one that her mother uses to drive kids to school, and despite the adversity, Amber is a self-proclaimed princess of hope and girl of unyielding optimism. A fatal tragedy puts her optimism to the test.

Matthew Quick wrote the novel “Silver Linings Playbook,” which begs the question: Why would this project go out with a spec script attached? Interesting strategy. Perhaps someone on the rep side of things would enlighten us why this approach. But it worked and congrats to Harwood & Sandler, as well as Quick.

Writers are repped by Gersh and Mosaic.

By my count, this is the 65th spec script sale in 2013.

There were 69 spec script sales year-to-date in 2012.

At times this year, sales were down 50% compared to last year. Now they’ve almost caught up. And this with some of the major studios basically sitting on their wallets when it comes to the spec market.