The Scoggins Report: January/February 2012 Pitch Sales Roundup
The Scoggins Report is a compilation of sales and trends in the industry. Archive editions can be found on www.thewrap.com. Details on every person, project, and company covered by the…
The Scoggins Report is a compilation of sales and trends in the industry. Archive editions can be found on www.thewrap.com. Details on every person, project, and company covered by the Report can also be found at www.ItsontheGrid.com. The Report is reprinted at ScriptMag.com by permission of the authors.
The Scoggins Report
by Jason Scoggins & Cindy Kaplan
January/February 2012
Pitch Sales Roundup
This week’s edition of The Scoggins Report is our first regular Pitch Sales Roundup of 2012, with project details for each of the 12 sales so far this year. As you can see from the below grids, February’s numbers slowed quite a bit compared to January. The same thing happened with spec sales this month, but we’ll comment on that next week.
We’ll have to wait and see whether February’s numbers are the start of a trend or just a bit of a breather at the beginning of the Spring selling season. Regardless, there are two days left in February as of this writing and we’re exactly even year over year so far.
Here are January’s and February’s raw numbers:
Weekly Activity Breakdown
Week of January 2 (New Year’s Day):
• No pitch sales announced
Week of January 9:
• 2 pitch sales announced(“Invasion”and“The Vatican”)
Week of January 16:
• 1 pitch sale announced (“Something from Tiffany’s”)
Week of January 23 (Sundance):
• 4 pitch sales announced (“Untitled Brian Miller/Ryan Murphy Project,”“Kill Switch,” “Untitled Max Landis Space Adventure” and “Prosthesis”)
Week of January 30:
• 1 pitch sale announced (“Untitled Oren Uziel Action Comedy”)
Week of February 6:
• 2 pitch sales announced (“Untitled Geoff LaTulippe Ensemble Comedy” and“Interpol”)
Week of February 13:
• 1 pitch sale announced (“Untitled Zetumer Spy Thriller”)
Week of February 20 (Presidents’ Day):
• No pitch sales announced
Week of February 27:
• 1 pitch sale announced as of the 27th (“Untitled Dracula Pitch”)
Pitch Sales (alphabetical by title)
January Sales:
Writers: Ryan Murphy & Brian Miller
Reps: CAA (Rowena Arguelles, Billy Hawkins, Matt Rosen) and 3 Arts
Buyer: Columbia
Genre: Horror sci-fi
Attachments: John Palermo to produce through his eponymous shingle with Murphy.
Writer: J. Daniel Shaffer
Reps: Verve (Bryan Besser, Rob Herting)
Buyer: Reel FX
Genre: Supernatural thriller
Attachments: Brad Peyton (“Journey 2: The Mysterious Island”) attached to direct and produce with Strange Weather Films’ Andrew Adamson and Cary Granat.
Logline: Revolves around a group of unarmed and unprepared students from Philadelphia who have to become soldiers to survive an attack by a supernatural force. In the vein of CLOVERFIELD.
Writer: Ken Woodruff
Reps: WME (Mike Esola) and manager Rich Demato
Buyer: Warner Bros.
Genre: Action comedy
Attachments: JC23 Entertainment’s Michael Aguilar to produce.
Writer: Max Landis
Reps: WME (Dannay Gabai, David Karp) and Circle of Confusion (Britton Rizzio)
Genre: Sci-fi adventure
Buyer: Disney
Attachments: Andrew Panay’s Panay Films to produce.
Logline: Centers on a brother and sister as they undertake an epic adventure.
Writer: Oren Uziel (“The Kitchen Sink”)
Reps: WME (Sharon Jackson) and Circle of Confusion (Britton Rizzio)
Buyer: Columbia
Genre: Action comedy
Attachments: Neal Moritz’s Original Film to produce.
Notes: Lauren Abrahams will oversee for Columbia.
Logline: DIE HARD meets HOME ALONE.
Writer: Arvind Palep
Reps: WME (Elia Infascelli-Smith) and The Gotham Group (Peter McHugh)
Buyer: Universal
Genre: Action sci-fi
Attachments: Palep is attached to direct. Serge Patzak will produce for 1stAveMachine alongside Sam Penfield and Gotham’s McHugh, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Eric Robinson.
Notes: Sold based on Palep’s 10-minute VFX storyboard presentation; currently an open writing assignment. Anikah MacLaren will oversee for Universal.
Logline: Under wraps, said to be an epic set in immersive worlds parallel to our own.
Writer: Melissa Stack
Reps: Paradigm (Mark Ross, Christopher Smith, Ida Ziniti) and Kaplan/Perrone (Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone)
Buyer: Fox
Genre: Romantic comedy
Attachments: LBI Entertainment’s Julie Yorn will produce
Notes: Daria Cercek to oversee for Fox
Logline: In the vein of THE FIRST WIVES CLUB, but with younger leads.
Writer: Dave Cohen
Reps: ICM (Emile Gladstone) and Generate (Jeremy Platt)
Buyer: Warner Bros.
Genre: Thriller
Attachments: William Brent Bell (“The Devil Inside”) to direct. Vertigo’s Roy Lee to produce with Lawrence Grey and John Powers Middleton.
Logline: Found footage conspiracy-driven thriller.
February Sales:
Writer: Jason Keller (“Machine Gun Preacher”)
Reps: CAA (Scott Greenberg) and Management 360 (Guymon Cassady)
Buyer: Columbia
Genre: Horror
Attachments: Roth Films’ Joe Roth and Palak Patel will produce.
Notes: Price was reportedly high six against seven figures.
Logline: Period version of Dracula’s origin story.
Writer: Geoff LaTulippe (“Going The Distance”)
Reps: WME (Sarah Self) and Mosaic (Michael Lasker)
Buyer: Paramount
Genre: Comedy
Attachments: LaTulippe is attached to direct. Marti Noxon and Dawn Olmstead will produce.
Writers: Brant Boivin & Jonathan Keasey
Reps: Paradigm (Valarie Phillips) and Kaplan/Perrone (Alex Lerner)
Buyer: Columbia
Genre: Action comedy
Attachments: Overbrook’s Will Smith, James Lassiter and Ken Stovitz will produce.
Writer: Josh Zetumer
Reps: UTA (Jason Burns) and Management 360 (Guymon Casady, Darin Friedman)
Buyer: Warner Bros.
Genre: Thriller
Attachments: Rubin Fleischer will produce with Captivate’s Jeffrey Weiner and Ben Smith and Management 360’s Casady and Friedman
About The Scoggins Report:
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.
Details on every person, project and company covered by the Report can also be found at www.ItsontheGrid.com, a proud division of The Wrap News, Inc. IOTG is the only place mere mortals can find listings of Hollywood’s active open writing and directing assignments, not to mention comprehensive pitch sales and spec market data; active film development information; and relevant credits for released movies going back to 1988.
The IOTG newsfeed (www.ItsontheGrid.com/news) includes daily highlights of recent updates to TheGrid. You’ll find buttons to subscribe to the feed right where you’d expect them. Follow our Twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/itsonthegrid.
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