The Scoggins Report: October 2012 Pitch Sales Roundup

The Scoggins Report is a compilation of sales and trends in the industry. The Report is reprinted on ScriptMag.com by permission of the authors.

The Scoggins Report
by Jason Scoggins & Cindy Kaplan
October 29, 2012

October 2012
Pitch Sales Roundup

When we went dark last week to sync up with the calendar, we hoped we’d be returning to report on an insanely busy month for spec sales. Alas, we could have written this edition last Monday after all, since there wasn’t any pitch sale activity during our hiatus.

All’s far from lost, though. As you’ll see below, October thus far has seen perfectly respectable pitch sales numbers by 2012 standards, just not as high as 2011’s. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that one or two more will be announced this week (maybe something Halloween-themed, or perhaps an almost as scary “Frankenstorm” project?).

In the meantime, here are our favorite tidbits from October’s sales:

• Four of October’s six pitches were from writer/performers (Sacha Baron Cohen, Leah Rachel, Jason Segal and Rebel Wilson). That qualifies as a trend, by journalism standards, so we’re expecting other buyers to jump on the bandwagon. “Untitled Tig Notaro Tragicomedy,” anyone?

• Universal bought 3 of October’s 6 pitches, bring the studio’s year-to-date total to 11 (just shy of the dozen it bought in 2011) and extending its lead over second-place studios Paramount and Warner Bros. (9 each so far).

• WME’s powerhouse MP Lit Department teamed up with the Talent Departments (and Sharon Jackson in particular) in a big way last month: The agency sold all four of the aforementioned writer/performer projects and is now just three pitch sales shy of its 2011 tally (25).

The monthly raw numbers are below along with weekly breakdowns and the details of each sale. Hang in there, East Coast.

Weekly Activity Breakdown

Week of September 30

• “The Lesbian”

• “Untitled Threesome Comedy”

• “Untitled Zak Penn Sci-Fi Project”

Week of October 7:

• “Untitled Rebel Wilson Comedy”

Week of October 14:

• “Untitled Harnick/Cion Romantic Comedy”

• “The Other F Word”

Week of October 21:

• No pitch sales announced

Pitch Sales (alphabetical by title)

Untitled Harnick/Cion Romantic Comedy

Writers: Annie Harnick & Nick Cion

Reps: ICM (Bryan Diperstein, Esther Newberg, Josie Freedman, Todd Hoffman)

Buyer: Sidney Kimmel Entertainment

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Notes: Harnick and Cion are currently students at Harvard and Princeton, respectively.

Logline: TBA.

The Lesbian

Writer: Sacha Baron Cohen (story)

Reps: WME (Adam Venit, Jeff Gorin, Nick Stevens, Sharon Jackson)

Buyer: Paramount

Genre: Comedy

Attachments: Cohen will star and produce through his Four by Two Films.

Notes: Cohen won’t write the script; Paramount is already out to writers to take over.

Logline: Inspired by Cecil Chao, the Hong Kong billionaire who offered $65 million to any man who succeeded in marrying his lesbian daughter. Chao’s offer made international headlines following reports that his daughter had a French church bless her relationship with her longtime girlfriend.

The Other F Word

Writers: Jason Segel & Drew Pearce

Reps: WME (Sharon Jackson, Greg Hodes, Melissa Myers, Philip D’Amecourt) and Abrams Entertainment (Stacy Abrams)

Buyer: Fox

Genre: Drama

Attachments: Segel and Pearce will executive produce.

Notes: Based on the documentary of the same name.

Logline: Explores the world of aging punk rock musicians as they transition into fatherhood and try to maintain the contrast between their anti-authoritarian lifestyle with the responsibilities of being a dad.

Untitled Rebel Wilson Comedy

Writer: Rebel Wilson

Reps: WME (Jessica Kovacevic, Lisa Harrison, Sarah Self, Sharon Jackson, Stephanie Ritz) and 3 Arts (David Becky)

Buyer: Universal

Genre: Comedy

Attachments: Wilson will star and produce.

Logline: TBA.

Untitled Threesome Comedy

Writer: Leah Rachel

Reps: WME (Erin Junkin, Hanley Baxter, Rich Cook) and Anonymous Content (Adam Kossack, Adam Shulman)

Buyer: Universal

Genre: Comedy

Attachments: Gary Sanchez’s Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Kevin Messick, and Chris Henchy will produce.

Logline: TBA.

Untitled Zak Penn Sci-Fi Project

Writer: Zak Penn

Reps: CAA (Joe Cohen, Robert Bookman) and Anonymous Content (Adam Kossack, Adam Shulman)

Buyer: Universal

Genre: Sci-fi action

Attachments: Penn will direct. Chris Morgan will produce through his Chris Morgan Productions.

Logline: Under wraps, but said to be in the vein of “Chronicle.”

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. Mol??n labé.