The Scoggins Report: Scorecard Through November 2011

The Scoggins Report is a compilation of spec sales and trends in the industry. Archive editions of The Scoggins Report can be found at The Business of Show Institute and 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.

2011 Spec Market Scorecard as of November 11

With the end of the fall selling season at hand and impressive year-over-year numbers to analyze, it’s incredibly tempting to do a year-end review based on this month’s Scorecard. We’re going to exercise a little self-discipline, though, and hold off until next month. For now we’ll limit ourselves to our favorite highlights:

  • 2011’s total number of spec sales will almost certainly exceed 100. By our count, 90 scripts that came out this year have sold so far, plus another 9 that originally went out in previous years. Any way you slice it, this year’s spec market is up more than 50% over 2010.
  • Universal is in the midst of a fourth quarter comeback: The studio’s 3 spec purchases in October and November jumped it into a tie for third place with Fox, each of which has picked up a total of 6 so far this year. Hopefully one (or both) of them will surge ahead of second place Columbia’s 7 between now and the end of the year. Warner Bros. remains dominant -- its 4 purchases in October put it at 14 for the year.
  • CAA has taken a commanding lead among the agencies. Its 8 recent spec sales (an astounding 7 in October plus one so far in November) put its total at 22 for the year, well ahead of second place WME’s 17. UTA and ICM are still jockeying for third place, with 13 and 11 sales respectively. Fifth place remains up for grabs between APA (5), Gersh (5) and Paradigm (6).
  • The race for top management company still isn’t over. To be sure, Josh Adler and Mike Goldberg are in a class by themselves with 8 sales this year across two different companies (ROAR and New Wave). But below them, Benderspink has 5 sales, and four other companies have 4 each: Circle of Confusion, Energy, H2F and Kaplan/Perrone. As of this writing, we’re hearing H2F is about to join Benderspink with its fifth sale as well.

Have a great holiday, everyone.

2011 Overall Spec Numbers (through Nov 11):

The below grid shows sales of scripts in the month they originally went out. In addition to the below, there have been nine sales of scripts that originally went out prior to 2011.

Spec Sales By Genre (sold/total):

Spec Sales By Buyer - Studios:

Spec Sales By Buyer - Other Buyers:

Each of the following production companies has been attached to at least one spec sale so far this year. Companies in bold are new since the last scorecard.

1st Degree Productions

21 Laps (2)

Anonymous Content

Aversano Films

After Dark

Appian Way

Alliance Films

Automatik Entertainment

Big Kid Pictures

Benderspink

Berlanti Productions

Broken Road

Chernin Entertainment

Collider Entertainment

Contrafilm

Davis Entertainment

Disruption Entertainment (2)

EMJAG

Escape Artists

IDW

FilmEngine

Furst Films

Gary Sanchez Productions

Genre Films

Hollywood Gang (2)

Ixtlan

Josephson Entertainment

Katsmith Productions (2)

Langley Park (2)

Lawrence Gordon Productions

LBI Entertainment (fka Yorn Company)

Leverage Management

Linson Entertainment

Marc Platt Productions (2)

Mandeville Films

Matt Tolmach Productions

Michael De Luca Productions

Montecito (2)

Original Film

Panay Films

Pearl Street

Platinum Dunes

Nick Wechsler Productions

Protozoa Pictures

Radar Pictures

Red Hour

Safady Entertainment

Silver Pictures (2)

Stuber Pictures

Temple Hill (2)

Top Cow

Unbroken Pictures

Valhalla

Wigram Productions

WideAwake

Spec Sales by Seller - Agencies (sold/total):

1 Includes a script not counted toward the company’s 2011 efficiency rating because it originally went out prior to 2011.

Spec Sales by Seller - Management Companies (sold/total):

1 Includes a script not counted toward the company’s 2011 efficiency rating because it originally went out prior to 2011.

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. Past editions of The Scoggins Report can be found in the archives of The Business of Show Institute (http://bit.ly/2HRZ67) and now have a beautiful new home on www.theWrap.com.

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 spec market data; active film development information and relevant credits for released movies going back to 1988.

The IOTG Blog has a new home on the site, by the way: www.ItsontheGrid.com/news It includes daily highlights of recent database updates and individual posts on every spec that hits the market. You’ll find buttons to subscribe to the blog’s feed right where you’d expect them, and you can follow the site’s Twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/itsonthegrid.

Top screenwriting and film publication, founded in 1989, published by Active Interest Media. Twitter: @scriptmag