Spec Market Sale

Screen Gems has picked up SABINE by Gregg Hurwitz & Philip Eisner. An ambitious detective hunts a dangerous killer.

HBO Max has acquired SHELL by Jack Stanley. Set in the health and beauty industry.

New Line has picked up THE COME UP by Michael Starrbury. Described as FRIDAY meets OCEANS 11.

Apple and A24 picked up SHARPER by Alex Tanaka & Brian Gatewood. A con artist sets her sights on billionaires.

Lionsgate has picked up THE CULLING by Stephen Herman. A troubled priest confines himself in an isolated cabin to confront a demon.

Linda Chester Literary Agency and Circle of Confusion are out with THE BLUE AFTERNOON THAT LASTED FOREVER. A NASA physicist discovers a black hole is going to collide with the Earth.

The Muraviov Company is out with TIME ZERO by Erin Carere & Carlo Carere. An unfulfilled engineer wakes up shackled to a ticking nuclear bomb in an underground chamber with only a phone and one instruction to save millions of people: she must convince the US President to kill himself.

David Boxerbaum of Verve joins us for this week’s Anatomy of a Sale. He explores what it’s like taking a small, intimate story and generating massive buzz around town, deciding which buyer to go with in the heat of a bidding war, and how one Friday afternoon changed two writer’s lives forever.

“Initially my mind went to a Horror movie, which I’ve heard the Uber horror pitch many, many times… So I thought what’s the Action/Comedy version?” – Good Fear Content’s Jake Wagner joins us for the latest installment of Anatomy of a Sale. Jake walks us through one of his own concepts, which would plant the seeds for STUBER written by Tripper Clancy.

We are joined by Jake Wagner of Good Fear Content, who takes us through the in’s and out’s of one of the biggest spec sales in history – SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN from writer Evan Daugherty. The project, which was initially written during Daugherty’s time at NYU, would go on to launch his career, land him a spot on both the Hit List and Black List, and garner nearly $400 Million at the box office.

“It had an independent sensibility, it didn’t feel too big like a studio film.” – Jeff Portnoy of Bellevue Productions breaks down the sale of ‘THE MISERABLE ADVENTURES OF BURT SQUIRE ABOARD THE HORN HIGH YO’.

“Coming up with an idea like that at that time was impeccable. If it was a year before, I don’t think we would have had the same result.” – Jeff Portnoy of Bellevue Productions breaks down the sale of ‘BODY CAM’.

In Part 2 of our interview with Lit Entertainment’s Adam Kolbrenner, he dives into the 2013 Action-Thriller SAFE HOUSE from writer David Guggenheim. He examines market strategy, calling cards, and what to expect if your script does or does not sell.

This week we are joined by Lit Entertainment’s Adam Kolbrenner. He dissects the 2013 Crime/Thriller PRISONERS from scribe Aaron Guzikowski. Kolbrenner lays out the untold story of endless drafts all the way up to the red carpet premiere, taking a completely original idea and turning it into the breakout we know Guzikowski’s PRISONERS to be.

After her family is murdered, an assassin seeks revenge on the killers.

Story under wraps, said to be in the vein of Inception and Edge of Tomorrow.

Details being kept under wraps.

Out-of-work stuntmen are hired to perform in a cheesy live action show at a new theme park in Dubai. But on opening day, the assembled VIPs and stuntmen’s loved ones are taken hostage by real villains for ransom, and the rival daredevils must use their old-school skills to defeat the high-tech bad guys.

Details the friendship between Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky, the unraveling of which led to the first impeachment of a United States President in 130 years, and launched the modern era of clickbait journalism.

When her violent past catches up with her, a woman in hiding from her criminal ex must work with a CIA agent to save the daughter she gave up for adoption years earlier.

A professor tries to escape Sarajevo during the four-year siege in the 1990s during the Bosnian War.

With his family’s farm ravaged by the Dust Bowl, a 15-year-old sets out to capture a fugitive bank robber and collect the bounty on her head.

When a paranormal investigator begins to explore the bizarre phenomena that drew him to a remote small town, he soon discovers that these instances have an eerie connection with his own past.

Based on a book of the oral histories, this tells the story of an ordinary group of women who did something extraordinary: 11,000 safe, illegal abortions in Chicago from 1968 to 1973.

Described as Galaxy Quest meets Ocean’s Eleven, the film finds Ferrell playing a washed-up TV star who reunites with the actor (Momoa) who played his son, who has since become a huge star.

Set in a not-too-distant future where Earth is under attack from creatures from an alternate world, bent on humanity’s destruction. It centers on a father who hides his 14-year-old daughter on an island to avoid her conscription in the all-female army and escape the war, but nowhere is truly safe.

The story follows small-time money-launderer Moe Diamond (Liam Hemsworth) who is suffering from amnesia after a freak accident during a deal gone wrong, which explains how he has no idea why there are dirty cops and vicious gangsters chasing after him.

Described as “a female John Wick,” Peppermint is a revenge story about a young mother who finds herself with nothing to lose and eager to take from her rivals the very life they stole from her.

Follows a young man who seeks out a father he has never met and, through no fault of his own ends up barricaded in a liquor sotre iwht five other people on Christmas Eve.

Details under wraps, but said to be about mythological creatures and artifacts kept in a facility.