February is usually one of the busiest months of the year in the screen trade, and with over 100 script sales this month, 2011 was no different. The month included two sales based on Houdini, “The Secret Life of Houdini,” by Noah Oppenheim, which will be produced by Summit Entertainment, and “Voices from the Dead,” by J. Michael Straczynski, to be produced by DreamWorks. The latest adaptation of Pinocchio, written by Matthew Robbins, and based on a story by himself and Guillermo del Toro, will be produced by The Jim Henson Company, and will be shot in stop-motion 3D. Moving in a new direction away from movies like “Donnie Darko” and “Southland Tales,” Darko Entertaiment greenlit Richard Kelly’s latest script, “Corpus Christi,” a more dramatic look at a mentally unstable war vetran.
Other notable sales include:
– Susannah Grant sold a bio-pic to Disney based on the life of Lynn Shaw.
– John Fusco sold “Last Train to Memphis” to Fox, a bio-pic about Elvis.
– Berkely Breathed sold “Flawed Dogs” to DreamWorks Animation, based on a picturebook.