On TrackingBoard.com, a user tallied up spec script sales in the first quarter of this year and came up with some different numbers than my analysis:
- The total number of specs so far in 2009 (January 1 through April 3) is 173 (plus or minus a few we may not have caught). Of these, 23 have sold.
He didn’t list each script project, just the sales totals, so I can’t cross-check. But 23 sales represents 6 more than the total (17) I came up with.
One poster says that TrackingBoard had only noted 21 sales, not 23. Another posted noted that at least three of those deals were options like this one:
Kai Pictures & film financier Ideal Partners have optioned EVERY GOOD BOY DOES FINE by Jonathan Dees. It’s a modern day “Boy Who Cried Wolf” story about a young boy who starts to believe that the man who tunes his piano is responsible for a series of murders in the area. When none of the adults […]
The trades normally don’t post options because the numbers involved (typically no more than $10K) aren’t all that big, so their absence from Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter would account for at least part of the discrepancy. Moreover I don’t include option deals anyhow because they don’t represent actual sales to studios or large production companies.
Even if there were 23 sales, it doesn’t change one trend:
Of the 23 sales, here’s the genre breakdown:
– 10 comedies
– 8 action/thrillers
– 3 sci-fi
– 1 drama (this is a bit of an outlier — it’s the remake of the Swedish film, Patrik 1.5)
– 1 horror (not including a couple of comedy/horror projects, which are included above)
The predominance of comedies and action / thrillers, reflected here as in my numbers.
[By the way, I didn't include the "Patrik 1.5" deal as by all accounts, it did not involve a spec script, rather an assignment for the writers based upon, what I assume was, their take on the material.]
As usual, if anyone has any other inside information about spec script sales, please forward to me. I track and post this information as a resource for GITS readers to be able to see what is happening in the spec marketplace, so I want to be as accurate as possible.
