With the end of the Fall selling season at hand and impressive year-over-year numbers to analyze, it’s 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 nine 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 three-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 six so far this year. Hopefully one (or both) of them will surge ahead of second place Columbia’s seven between now and the end of the year. Warner Bros. remains dominant — its four purchases in October put it at 14 for the year.
• CAA has taken a commanding lead among the agencies. Its eight recent spec sales (an astounding seven 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 (five), Gersh (five) and Paradigm (six).
• 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 eight sales this year across two different companies (ROAR and New Wave). But below them, Benderspink and H2F each have five sales, and three other companies have four each: Circle of Confusion, Energy and Kaplan/Perrone.
The grids are below. 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, through November 11 there had been nine sales of scripts that originally went out prior to 2011 (which is why we reported last time that there had been 20 sales in October).
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):
Spec Sales by Seller – Management Companies (sold/total):
