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Here are some talking points for this weekend’s holiday parties. Jason Scoggins, a partner at the literary management and production company Protocol, has compiled what he readily admits is a “terribly unscientific” but which I find very interesting compilation of the 2009 feature film spec script market based on information culled from public and non-public sources. The numbers do not include pitch sales or the film rights to underlying material. He found that:
• 436 spec scripts came out in 2009, of which 72 sold (17%).
• 373 specs went out wide in 2009, of which 19 sold (5%). Of those 19, only 3 sold after April 30th, out of 178 attempts during the period (1.7%).
• As for spec sals by genre, comedies led with 32% of sales, thrillers 29%, action adventures 21%, while dramas and sci-fi/fantasies tied with 10%.
• Universal and Warner Bros bought the most specs among the major buyers (6 each). But Warner Bros bought only 1 spec script in the second half of the year. Paramount & Sony tied with 5 each not counting ony’s Screen Gems which bought another 3. DreamWorks had 4. 20th Century Fox had 3, but adding all its three banners, Fox bought 6 specs. Lionsgate purchased 3. New Line didn’t buy any specs in 2009.
• Relativity and Intrepid bought the most specs among the other buyers (3 each).
• In the spec market scrum among agencies, CAA made 14 spec script sales out of 34 attempts, or 41%), followed by UTA’s 10 sales out of 30 attempts, or 33%, and ICM’s 10 sales out of 33 attempts, or 30%. WME didn’t form until May 2009, but when you take the numbers for all three of its component companies — Endeavor, William Morris, and WME — the combined agency would have been a dominant #1 in total scripts sold, with 18 sales out of 47 attempts, or 38%)
• Benderspink among management companies had the most spec sales (5 sales out of 11 attempts, or 45%). Kaplan/Perrone had 4 sales out of 12 attempts, or 33%. Principato-Young made 3 sales out of 8 attempts, or 38%, while Circle Of Confusion did 3 sales out of 15 attempts, or 20%.
Scoggins also found several interesting patterns:
1. The wide spec basically died on April 30, 2009. For the first four months of 2009, 8.2% of the specs that went wide to the town ended up selling (16 out of 195). Not a great percentage, but probably to be expected, all things considered. From May through the end of the year, however, sales of wide specs fell off a cliff: 3 out of 178 wide specs sold during that period, or 1.7%.2. Somewhat surprisingly, specs sold consistently throughout the year on a percentage basis. The Spring selling season is roughly twice as long as the Fall season: this year, there were 21 weeks in the Spring (from the end of Sundance to theweek before Independence Day) versus 10 weeks in the Fall (from the week after Labor Day to the week before Thanksgiving). So all things being equal, there should have been twice as many scripts and sales in the first half of the year versus the second. But not everything was equal in the latter part of 2009: there was significant studio head turnover, plus three studios put a moratorium on development spending. Spring sales were front-loaded into the first four months of the period (41 out of the 50 sales for the first half of the year), yet roughly the same percentage of scripts on the market sold in the first half of the year (16.7%) as the second (16.2%).
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Thanks for the Scorecard, NF.
Cool stats! However, in looking back to prior years, according to some sources, the odds were much worse, where 100,000 to 150,000 total pitches and spec screenplay submissions resulted in < 400 movies produced?
Am I missing something here? Thank you again for compiling these!
Whats the difference between these two points?
• 436 spec scripts came out in 2009, of which 72 sold (17%).
• 373 specs went out wide in 2009, of which 19 sold (5%). Of those 19, only 3 sold after April 30th, out of 178 attempts during the period (1.7%).
Any numbers on how many of those scripts bought were actually turned into films?
U-G-L-Y.
Or is that spelled W-G-A?
Is there any breakdown on how many new writers sold scripts? I’m sure that would be sadly hilarious with 52/72 specs that were sold being repped by (what’s now) Big 4 agencies.
The agents don’t even respond anymore, in the early 00′s they at least sent you an email or made a phone call.
Specs are doomed for the next two years.
we do but it’s soooooooooo time consuming; reason–we get mail from around the world. TONS OF IT. But as for me, since I am hungry, and makin’ my bones. I read it all.
Interesting figures. It’s called cutting the fat from the steak.
As an ex Story Analyst I can say there is an UNBEARABLE amount of absolute dreck out there but, from time to time, that little gem does so shine (Then gets sold, overdeveloped and turned around).
Although I agree that there is a lot of “dreck” out there, it’s a little general to assume that specs aren’t being sold just because they are bad. Besides, that assumes that the ones that do get sold are good. If only it were that simple…
BFDealMemo reports on a 2.5 million dollar sale last night. Steve Carell attached to star.
They go on to list several big sales of the year. All A list names as writers or attachments.
Nikki– can you please report what the average price of the spec sales were this year?
How many had A list attachments and how many were by un-produced writers v. big names?
Feels more and more like we’re losing the middle class of the WGA post strike. . .
The entire country is losing the middle class!
In response to the post by Questions – that Steve Carell is most likely money that goes against his overall deal at the studio so it’s not a true spec sale by definition. It’s just spin.
2.5 was the backend if it got made and the writer got sole credit. Up front was close to to 2M. That’s how writer deals work in Hollywood, this one was just really huge. It was a “true spec”. Went out to all of the studios. I like most everyone else in town chased it. Carell was just only attached at Warner Bros.
This is very informative, if a bit confounding. I’m with the first poster, those first two bullet points are confusing (I assume not all specs went out wide, so the first number is the total sales count for the year? Why make the distinction?). Also, if you add up the numbers sold per agency as you’ve listed them here, the numbers add up to 52. I guess the smaller agencies’ sales aren’t worth mentioning.
Would love to know the stats for pitches.
What I’d like to know is how in the hell the smaller agencies are still eating?
Terrifying numbers and a reality check to all writers and would be writers out there. Selling a spec is turning into a lottery ticket.
I had a big spec sale a few years ago and did well, but this past year I made no money. I’m embarrassed to even do my taxes as the entire year is a total loss.
The assignments are drying up to. I worked on 3 different projects with big name producers this year that all went nowhere when it was time to go to buyers with them. The producers are not putting any money up. You’re working on “Takes” with them for nothing and in my and many other cases getting nothing in the end.
My agent told me to focus on spec’s this year after I freaked out about one of these takes going south when the producer couldn’t get the actor/director attachment they dreamed of. About a month ago my agent told me “spec’s aren’t selling anymore” to which I responded “WTF do I do then?” He told me to “hang in there”.
At this point you have to have a very high concept spec that is written very well to break through. If you have an attachment or two all the better.
Right now my team is working on getting actor and director attachments before going to buyers. Nobody is reading anything with any kind of speed though.
What sucks is the stuff I have set up at studios that have attachments are just sitting on the shelf. Some of it’s due to turnover at the studio. Some of it is due to the studio hiring a “closer” to rewrite me who then muddles the script up so much they lose interest in it.
In the past, they just went to buyers with my scripts and sold them.
The whole landscape has changed rapidly. I need something to get greenlit and do well at the box office or I’ll be back in a cube before I know it.
As a feature writer and part time gambler, I like these odds!
I am in the top 1.7% of hacks. No diggity.
this is a nice list – but not accurate. Spec sales are not always announced….
If you would like to see Jason’s weekly stats and the smaller agency/mngmnt company breakdown, it’s listed every week on The Business of Show Institute, where Jason writes a weekly column on the spec market.
To answer the first poster, the difference between those two stats is incredibly important for the following reasons: It goes to show that sending a spec out wide has ceased being a viable way to sell a product. 373 specs went out wide, but only 19 sold. But there were 72 sales – which means the other 53 came from projects that didnt go out wide – but went to select producers or had packages already, proving that you almost have to have a package these days to sell anything – it has to have a director, actor or producer of note already attached. This is a huge difference from years past and it means that it’s getting increasingly difficult for a new writer to break in by just writing a good script.
Sending specs out wide may still be a nice way to introduce a new writer to the town and get them meetings, or for small boutique agencies and management companies to get their name out there when they don’t have the contacts to just call a big producer, but it’s not the way to sell a script. Jason’s right – the spec market is dead.
R.I.P.
@Michael – The numbers for “wide” specs are a subset of the overall numbers. So of the 436 scripts I tracked this year, 373 of them went out wide to the town; the rest either went to just a handful of select producers or direct to buyers. I have mini-glossary here: http://blog.itsonthegrid.com/iotg-glossary.html
@Undercut – Good question (% of sold specs from new writers). Scott Myers at http://www.gointothestory.com is gong to dive into the numbers a bit deeper over the next couple of weeks, and I’ll suggest he include that in his breakdown.
@Questions – I don’t have good enough data on prices to come up with an average (and there are so many variables in reported prices that an average would be meaningless in any case). I haven’t down a breakdown on attachments, but it’s something I’ve included in my monthly Spec Market Rounds this year (they’re available in the archives at http://www.lifeonthebubble.com). I’ll suggest to Scott that he include that as well. And by the way, I think you’re right — the middle class of the WGA was been hurt the most by the strike and the overall economy.
@Answers – I basically agree — based on the Dealmemo post, it feels like something developed with Carell from the outset, as opposed to a script Fogelman wrote on his own and then brought to WME to package (they rep Carell and Fogelman). I could be wrong, but I think you’re right, that there’s some spin going on here.
@Unscientific – I make the distinction between overall sales and wide sales because going wide with a spec was the standard way to sell a script and break a new writer into the business for so long. This year, that became the standard way NOT to sell a script. As for the smaller agencies, I’ve got those numbers on the full report, which you can download here: http://www.lifeonthebubble.com Finally, I wasn’t well positioned to capture much data on pitches in the first half of the year, so I didn’t bother to track them until we launched http://www.itsonthegrid.com a month or so ago. We’ll have separate pitch stats next year.
Wrong about the Steve Carell project. Dan Fogelman wrote it totally on spec and then a completed script was sent to Carell. Carell and his company took it into Warner Bros. (they’re exclusive there) when it went to the rest of the town. This is one of those examples of everything working perfectly for a writer.
There’s no spin with the Fogelman spec. Probably the biggest spec sale of the year. Amazing script.
fascinating and those numbers really aren’t that bad… at least there’s still a market… one out of five sells… figure two or three out of five are garbage… so if you write a decent script you’ve got a semi-decent shot at selling it… ergo: KEEP WRITING!
So this is how it works, huh? Bummer.
Geesh! No wonder I have a stack of scripts gathering dust here.
The studio business model for making movies is completely broken. They aren’t buying product, and they sure aren’t cutting their byzantine layers of development executives to any great extent. Keep the development execs, but don’t do any development. Genius. Keep the costs and lose the product.
Box office is setting records, and though DVD sales are down, they are only down as much as all retail is down. Also I think consumers are weary of purchasing DVD’s as they are cutting back in general, in light of the Blue Ray format making their old DVD’s seem obsolete. It is obvious to ordinary consumers that digital downloads are around the corner and your DVD’s will soon seem as lame as big old clunky VHS tapes.
The audience is there, and if you talk to any normal person outside of this town, they just simply want to see good movies, and don’t think there are enough of them out there.
If, out of fear based decision making, all the studios want to make are 100 million plus tent poles out of board games and plastic trolls, who will step in to finance good movies that can be made from two to ten million?
Even with lowered DVD sales, a film with limited theatrical release that is made for under five million, with the great talent that is sitting around on its collective ass currently, still has an excellent business model.
In the ten to thirty million dollar range smart money should also be looking at the enormous profit margin on films like “The Hangover” and “District 9″ which did not have huge stars and really are just…ya know, good movies. They didn’t come out of studios development tracks.
Where is the smart VC money, and how can it get direct access to union talent with experience that can make those films? Certainly investing in real estate or T-bills isn’t going to get you a return for a while now.
Where is the smart money, and how can the actual creators of product in this town (union actors, writers, directors) connect with that money to eliminate the studios, who simply provide layers of costs and alleged marketing expertise. When you can digitally distribute both to the home consumer and to theatre exhibitors, why will you need studios? It’s not like studios are the only ones who can buy display ads and billboards and bus shelter signs.
And the studios certainly don’t control the internet or have much of a clue as to how to utilize social network marketing.
The figures that show that the readership of this blog now outscores the readership of the trades (BOTH online and in print added together) show that everything in this town has suddenly become a new, and way less clubby game, and the traditional show biz infrastructure doesn’t get it.
Where is the smart money? Who will put together a system where money reaches talent directly without having to go through the studios?
To WGA Writer – I agree with most of what you’re saying EXCEPT your first paragraph is very much incorrect. Companies are indeed cutting many layers of development execs! I am a former executive and on one of my tracking boards of almost 30 people, more than half have either lost their job in the last 2 years or have decided to transition to writing or producing on their own.
You may not know this, but there have been hundreds of cuts in development departments across the board this year. Not to mention that with the shuttering of Fox Atomic, New Line (in its original form), WB Independent, Picturehouse, Paramount Vantage, Rogue (in its original form), and Weinstein Company clearning house (only 1 LA-based Exec left), that there are hundreds of unemployed execs out there and less and less companies with the capital to employ them. Add to that the fact that the WME Merger left a number of assistants (not to mention agents) out in the cold and many production companies and studios jumped at the chance to hire an agency assistant with no exec experience who would work for much less money to be their new Junior Exec than hire an experienced executive!!
The job market for executives has been disgusting for about 18 months now. And guess what execs do when they are unemployed? THEY WRITE!
And execs who turn to writing have an automatic pipeline to studios and managers and agents, and are more likely to get read and sold than a first time writer trying to break in without any connections, which in turn, is making it even harder for writers out there. So while many writers might think execs are useless – they’re really not. The best way to help new writers break in is by keeping as many execs employed as possible!
EXCELLENT original post and follow ups (thanks Nik for all the info). To answer the WGA-BizSense poster…you are correct and have your hands wrapped around the entire forecast for the future of this biz. Sadly, if you wanna see how it plays out? Just look at the reversal of fortunes in the music biz.
The current death of major labels is what lies ahead for major studios unless something changes fast. On the upside, today you have any artist (or even a wannabe) from Trent Reznor to “Trent Smith in Podunk” all having access to the same opportunities and the same fan/consumer dollars.
Consider “Paranormal Activity”. Which is akin to a talented indie band making their own records and selling/distributing via TuneCore/iTunes/Rhapsody, etc. In the future, you will see many more “Paranormal” success stories (much like the wave of post-Reservoir Dogs or El Mariachi indies).
Yes, there will always have a place for the major tent-pole studio fare…just like you’ll always have Metallica, Snoop Dogg, Red Hot C.P., and Eminem on majors. But the hard part will be finding the filter to seperate the wheat from the chaff when every joe blow can distribute his own films via online distribution (not just via YouTube). It may be such a deluge of half-to-low-quality crap that film fans get overloaded (and the R.O.I. = about .20 cents on the dollar). Search for the Bob Lefsetz Letter (a music/tech blog e-letter) as he and Seth Godin delineate this much better than I.
Thus, we (as writers, content creators, etc.) have to find new ways to structure our deals. (I’m not bragging here – simply offering my own example of a recent success in landing a new deal via unconventional partnerships). I just set up a big tent-pole pic deal based on my own graphic novel – and signed the studio contracts yesterday. Without having yet written the actual graphic novel (or script).
I recalled reading about how eons ago Bob Evans at Paramount commissioned Mario Puzo to write the book for the “Godfather” while the script was being written simultaneously (and did the same with either “Love Story” or some other novel I think). Instead of Paramount paying outlandishly for book rights? They bought the story rights, paid to have it written in novel, and ended up reaping $$$ on the actual sales of the novel – and the film too. They made it, and they owned it.
I thought I might try something similar. Which is why you likely won’t read this in the trades for quite a while. It isn’t a script – and isn’t even really a comic/graphic novel yet. It was a story – a very detailed story set up in a manner to which it can be an entire franchise property in every media format.
Instead of writing spec? I decided to go “lo tech”, and storyboard the thing (and wrote a TV-ish story bible) for the entire property (or franchise – from book to film to games to music).
Two calls were made: one to a solid producer, and another to a mini-studio/backer (such as Relativity or Legendary, etc.). They jumped at the chance once they went online and saw it (on the scrawny dinky homemade website I built to show the rough project). The only other person who knew about it was my manager; and a female acquaintence of Alan Moore’s who somehow finagled his (written and signed) blessing (via his attorneys) to allow me to use his “review” of the project’s potential based on the core story alone.
With the support of this one producer and this one financial backer(and an unholy endorsement from Alan Moore)…I now have a signed contract with THE major studio for all rights in all media worlwide. They pay me nothing upfront – but the backend is a straight split (and no, not NET either!) – and they split costs of all the dev/prod costs with the financiers.
Will it ever be made? We’ll see – but I have ironclad reversion rights. At least the major studio (and the mini-major financiers) and I are ALL partners on this property. It was an unconventional proposal from the get-go…but I’m not a good enough writer to sell on spec. My pitch to them was simple and said it all when I asked them:
“What would you give to be able to go back in time to 1938 and sign a 50/50 deal with Bob Kane & Bill Finger when they created Batman; including ownership of every project, media, merch, story, and spin-off from then…flash-forwarded to today?”.
It was risky, and unconventional, but it worked. I’m not claiming a fraction of Kane’s or Finger’s talents – nor of my property being a fraction as good as Batman/Dark Knight. But my story is actually original (though the template already exists); I like it, and hopefully it’ll entertain folks of all ages all over the globe – even for a little while. If they walk out of the theaters (or finish the book, or comic, etc.) and can smile or feel excited? It is good enough. The money will flow from there.
The studio is out ZERO up front…and if it bogs in DevHell or is used for studio political football? I can always revert to just a book deal or graphic novel deal. Because I’m just a hack high-concept guy with a knack for good stories. I’m no Wm. Monahan or Eric Roth or Zallian for sure. Most of Nikki’s readers write better comments than I write scripts! But I found the best way for me to stay fiscally solvent is to be a flexible self-starter. I can’t spell, blow a bubble, or whistle. Other than that – I’m normal. Best of luck to all, and be safe and blessed in all you do in the coming year. Remember – never, ever, fade away or give up.
Keep diggin’!
Michael, thank you for your post! I just wrote a spec and am getting some interest but my gut says I have to be producer and creative and put the pieces together in order to get this done. How kind of you to share the details, nuances and creativity that ultimately lead to your signed deal. I will share mine as well but I sure hope for my sake there’s some $$ up front! Good luck to you!
Is this Michael Wasserman of The Unusual Suspects prod co? Curious. Incidentally, you played that pitch just right… we’ve all had to adjust to the studios’ new ‘you do the work, which we’re happy to read at no money down’ model.
“436 spec scripts came out in 2009, of which 72 sold (17%).”
Coming from a writer that is just starting out, this is pretty bleak news. Hopefully things will slowly start to pick up over the next few years.
Just be a good writer!
I’m trying! I’m on my last year of college at UCSB, got 6 scripts done, 4 of which I feel confident about. Moving to LA this summer to start from the ground up.
And as for Michael’s story, very interesting deal that you’ve set up.
Excellent work, Jason, you rock! It’s a bit depressing but it’s a great compilation of stats and I hope it heralds a new paradigm of opportunities for writers trying to break in down the line.
Julie Gray
Anyone got comp figures from previous years? Just how much worse is it?
thanks for the cool stat churning, Jason. Very, very interesting read.
– bobby the saint
Let me get this right:
Hollywood creates a greedy, dishonest and biased business, then because of those biases, they lose touch with the populace. Product doesn’t sell and now no one wants to give them money to make their condescending-devoid-of-quality-dreck.
WGA Writer With Business Sense:
1) Have enough creatives-with-industry-clout gone the Joss Whedon/DR. HORRIBLE route to produce product? If not, they are missing a bet.
2) Relatedly, the Jan 2010 WIRED issue has a nifty article on four alternative ways indie filmmakers can distribute their movies and make money without waiting for a studio deal.
“If, out of fear based decision making, all the studios want to make are 100 million plus tent poles out of board games and plastic trolls, who will step in to finance good movies that can be made from two to ten million?”
It couldn’t have been said any better!
In a normal credit & capital markets situation, you can raise money for damn near anything. The problem is that the traditional indie movie model (since you’re not talking studio with 2-10 budgets) doesn’t produce a useful ROI. If it does not get picked up and get solid distribution, it’s an expensive doorstop. Most stuff doesn’t get picked up and thus becomes a near total loss. So unless you are able to guarantee people’s investment with collateral or personal guarantees – which you wouldn’t have to if you actually had that much, you’d self-finance – it’s tough sledding.
If you can build a business model where you can get around the pickup problem, the paradigm changes. You still need something that can be distributed for money, though. Like it or not, that *IS* a chronic problem with indie productions. I’m a big fan of art, but if you are borrowing money, the bills need paid.
You’d also still need execs and readers to grade projects since most finance guys don’t have a clue on quality or actual commercial potential.
This is all quite meaningless to the writer who wants to break in. They’ll ignore even the worst news in the audacity that they are the exception. Also, this information doesn’t break down whether the spec script is an original story or based on prior material. I’d hate to read the figures then for the former.