FilmFunds Tracking Report: May 2012 Pitch Sales Roundup

The FilmFunds Tracking Report is a compilation of sales and trends in the industry. The Report is reprinted at ScriptMag.com by permission of the authors.

FilmFunds Tracking Report
by Jason Scoggins & Cindy Kaplan

May 29, 2012

May 2012

Pitch Sales Roundup

Let’s begin with a quick bit of housekeeping: Starting this week we’re publishing our weekly newsletter under a new title -- “FilmFunds Tracking Report.” We’re making the change to reflect our new home at FilmFunds.com, and we’re working on a beautiful new look-and-feel for the PDF that will match the design of the website. In every other way, though, it’ll be the Scoggins Report you’ve come to know and love.

As you’ll see from the below, May was a quiet month for pitch sales: We usually see four sales over the holidays or in a summer month, not during the thick of selling season. Here’s the silver lining, though: 2012’s pitch sale tally is still up over 2011’s (41 vs 40), and we’re hearing another sale or two might get announced this week, now that Cannes and Memorial Weekend are behind us.

Speaking of silver linings, we love the fact that Fox Searchlight bought a pitch based on a reality TV series last month. We were originally going to go for the joke here (“What’s next, ‘Wipeout: The Movie’?!”), but the more we worked on it the more potential movies we came up with: “The Voice,” “Red Neck Island,” “Tough Love New Orleans” -- all movies. Apparently a sellable logline is a sellable logline.

Here are May’s raw numbers, such as they are:

Weekly Activity Breakdown

Week of April 30:

• 2 pitch sales were announced: One in April (“Untitled Sci-Fi Dinosaur Pitch”) and one in May (“Untitled Basketball Wives Pitch”)

Week of May 7:

• 1 pitch sale was announced (“Untitled Michael Mitnick Musical Comedy”)

Week of May 14:

• 1 pitch sale was announced (“Playdate”), and 1 went out that hasn’t sold (“L Train”)

Week of May 21 (run-up to Memorial Weekend):

• 1 pitch sale announced (“Untitled Chris Paciello Project”)

Pitch Sales (alphabetical by title)

Untitled Basketball Wives Pitch

Writer: Elizabeth Hunter

Reps: WME (Charles King) and Anonymous Content (Elana Barry, Joy Gorman)

Buyer: Fox Searchlight

Genre: Drama

Attachments: Shaunie O'Neal will produce with Our Stories Films' Tracey Edmonds. Glendon Palmer and Phil Robinson will executive produce.

Notes: Loosely based on the life of VH1’s Basketball Wives star O’Neal.

Logline: Centers around a young woman who follows her boyfriend to Miami after he gets drafted into the NBA. Thrust into the world of professional sports, she meets and learns from the sisterhood of players' wives and learns from their trials and tribulations.

Untitled Chris Paciello Project

Writer: Adam Mazer

Reps: ICM (John Burnham) and Inphenate (Glenn Rigberg)

Buyer: New Line

Genre: Drama

Attachments: Atlas Entertainment’s Chuck Roven, William Green and Richard Suckle will produce and Andy Horwitz will co-produce.

Notes: Richard Brener and Walter Hamada to oversee for New Line.

Logline: Based on the life of Miami nightclub owner Chris Paciello, aka the “King of Miami.” Paciello turned South Beach into one of the 1990’s hottest party destinations before serving time for his role in a robbery-turned-murder. He reportedly had mafia ties and was romantically linked to Madonna and Sofia Vergara.

Untitled Michael Mitnick Musical Comedy

Writer: Michael Mitnick

Reps: WME (Simon Faber) and Fourth Floor (Jeff Silver)

Buyer: Universal

Genre: Musical comedy

Attachments: TheMark Gordon Company’s Mark Gordon and Jennifer Todd will produce.

Notes: Sara Scott and Maradith Frenkel will oversee for Universal.

Logline: Under wraps.

Playdate

Writers: Tim Hill & Dave Johnson

Reps: Gersh (Abram Nalibotsky) and Principato-Young (Peter Principato, Paul Young)

Buyer: Fox

Genre: Comedy

Attachments: Hill (“Hop,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks”) will direct. Nicky Weinstock will produce for Invention Films.

Logline: Under wraps.

About FilmFunds Tracking Report:

FilmFunds Tracking Report, formerly known as the Scoggins Report, is a terribly unscientific analysis of the feature film development business based on information assembled from a variety of public and non-public sources. The numbers in the reports are by no means official statistics. Caveat emptor. Mol??n labé.