The Scoggins Report: May 2013 Pitch Market Roundup

The Scoggins Report
by Jason Scoggins & Cindy Kaplan
May 29, 2013

May 2013
Pitch Market Roundup

Thanks to the Cannes Film Festival and Memorial Day Weekend, May is usually among the slowest months for pitch sales each year and, as we anticipated in the Pitch Market Scorecard a couple of weeks ago, 2013 was no exception. Just one pitch sale was announced in the second half of the month.

As we noted in that Pitch Scorecard, pitch sales numbers so far this year have echoed 2011‘s pattern more closely than 2012’s, so our question at the moment is whether that will continue. In 2011, a couple of weeks on the French Riviera energized buyers enough to launch two months of strong sales -- 25 pitches got set up in June and July that year. Last year, however, the pace of pitch sales stabilized at a moderate level in June (after the usual low May) and stayed that way through the end of the year.

We’ll see what happens. In the meantime, looking back at May 2013, sales were pretty evenly distributed among Sellers for the second month in a row. The only highlight worth mentioning is one we said in April as well: Universal led the Buyers again with 2 pitch purchases this month, bringing the studio’s total to 9 so far this year, 2 shy of their 2012 total.

May’s raw numbers through today are below, followed by the usual weekly breakdowns and the details of each sale. Enjoy.

Weekly Activity Breakdown

Week of April 29

• Valkyries (May 2)

Week of May 6

• Untitled Brandon Camp Supernatural Thriller (May 6)

Week of May 13 (Cannes)

• Buddymoon (May 13)

• Extraction (May 13)

Week of May 20 (Cannes; run-up to Memorial Weekend)

• Looking Glass (May 24)

Week of May 27 (Memorial Day)

• No pitch sales announced as of 5/30

Pitch Sales (alphabetical by title)

Buddymoon

Writer: Andrew Goldberg (“The Family Guy”)

Reps: WME (Rich Cook, Greg Hodes, Zach Druker, Lisa Harrison) andUnderground (Josh Turner McGuire)

Buyer: Universal

Genre: Comedy

Attachments: Bluegrass' Scott Stuber and Pam Abdy will produce with Underground's Trevor Engelson. John Romano, whose real-life experience inspired the pitch, will co-produce; Underground's Josh McGuire will executive produce.

Notes: Universal's Jon Mone will oversee for the studio; Michael Clear will supervise for Bluegrass.

Logline: When a man is dumped on the eve of his nuptials, and with an already expensive honeymoon package paid for, he decides to indulge and invites his best buddy to go on the trip with him. Hijinks ensue.

Extraction

Writer: Tony Giglio

Reps: Paradigm (Trevor Astbury) and New Wave Entertainment(Josh Adler, Mike Goldberg)

Buyer: Crackle

Genre: Action

Attachments: Giglio directed; Sean Astin and Vinnie Jones starred. Mike Callaghan and Reuben Liber produced through Ranger 7.

Notes: Sold in January 2013 and recently wrapped. Budget was roughly $1.5m.

Logline: Contained action, centering on a prison break.

Looking Glass

Writer: Robert Edwards (“The Night Manager”)

Reps: CAA (Scott Greenberg, Jon Levin) and Brillstein Entertainment Partners (Margaret Riley)

Buyer: Ineffable Pictures

Genre: Action thriller

Attachments: Louis Leterrier is attached to direct. Lorenzo di Bonaventura will produce through his eponymous company with Ineffable’s Raphael Kryszek and Jesse Israel. Erik Howsam will oversee for Di Bonaventura Pictures.

Logline: TBA.

Untitled Brandon Camp Supernatural Thriller

Writer: Brandon Camp (“Love Happens”)

Reps: UTA (David Kramer, Matt Rice, Jason Burns)

Buyer: Universal

Genre: Supernatural thriller

Attachments: Offspring's Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot will produce and Matt Smith will executive produce.

Notes: Universal's Jon Mone will oversee.

Logline: TBA, but said to be in the vein of “Ghost.”

Valkyries

Writer: Nick Schoenfeld

Reps: ICM (Bryan Diperstein, Todd Hoffman) and Management 360(Jill McElroy)

Buyer: Thunder Road and Filmhaus Germany

Genre: Fantasy action adventure

Attachments: Thunder Road’s Basil Iwanyk will produce and Kent Kubena will executive produce with Cutting Edge’s Tara Moross.

Logline: Revolves around Norse hero Sigurd’s recruitment to slay the monstrous dragon Fafnir to ward off a generations-long curse, with a subplot involving a fallen daughter of Odin (one of the Valkyries) and her desire to retake a place in the heavens.

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. Caveat emptor.

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