Script Pipeline

It was a slower month for script sales (as Decembers usually are). Richard Tanne will write Southside with You, a romance based on Barack and Michelle Obama's first date. State Street Pictures and Paramount are moving forward with Zach Frenkel's 2013 Black List comedy Make a Wish. Ted Nusbaum sold his coming-of-age sports drama In the Crease, which takes place in the world of lacrosse. Will Ferrell tostar in a comedy about the competitive world of Shakespearean theatre companies, based on a pitch by David Guion and Michael Handelman. And Disney picked up Brandon Barker's revisionist Robin Hood spec Nottingham and Hood. Other script sales include: - Jim Carrey will star in Deep Cover, based on a pitch from Johnny Rosenthal. - LAIKA Entertainment is gearing up for their next animated feature, with Chris Butler (ParaNorman) and Marc Haimes on scripting duties, and Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron, Rooney Mara, and Ralph Fiennes lending their voices. - Michael Starrbury (a former…

A (presumably metric) ton of scripts were picked up from the 2014 Brit List, including Tamzin Rafn’s comedy Alice in La La Land, Matt Greenhalgh’s thriller Silencers, Paul Valnay’s sci-fi Sick Robot, and Lydia Adetunji’s psychological horror A Little Music. Back in the States, Industry Entertainment optioned Adam Taylor Barker’s Dig, a revenge thriller set in the Appalachian Mountains. McG will produce the spec script The Babysitter, a coming-of-age horror from Brian Duffield. Mark Waters has signed on to #direct the #highschoolcomedy #Catfight by Amelie Gillette (hashtags should be kept to a minimum). And Paramount bought two specs: Eric Koenig’s Matriarch, a thriller that pits a female prison psychologist against a female serial killer, and the screenplay ARES (Allied Recovery of the Extraordinary and Supernatural), in the vein of Indiana Jones and Men in Black, written by Michael Starrbury, a former Script Pipeline "Recommend" writer. Other script sales include: – Universal took over Aaron…

Brian Grazer, Alex Kurtzman, and Robert Orci have optioned a dozen Anne Rice novels, including Interview with a Vampire, to be adapted into a series The Vampire Chronicles with Universal. Stan Lee's idea Apollo Rising will be combined with the February spec sale Eternal by Victoria Aveyard. Two projects set on space colonies are in the pipeline: Out of this World by Allan Loeb and Moonfall by David Weil. In the comedy world, Relativity picked up All Day and a Night, a pitch by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley (Horrible Bosses), and Hyde Park optioned Peter Hoare's Killing Hasselhoff. . . Ken Jeong, David Hasselhoff, and Hulk Hogan to star. The Lonely Island is also getting a movie. Other script sales include: - Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph's Jennifer Lee to adapt A Wrinkle in Time. - Katharine Hepburn, The Three Tenors, and some Brazilian hitman who killed 492 people are getting biopics. - Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, and Tom Hardy producing an animal trafficking film.…

Adaptations, spin-offs, sequels. . . source material dominated in July, with Skull Island spinning off from King Kong and a live-action Dumbo moving forward. WB picked up Anne McCaffrey’s fantasy series Dragonriders of Pern and classic arcade game Space Invaders. Mike Tyson and Shel Silverstein are getting their own biopics as well. On the original script front: Diablo Run by Shea and Evan Mirzai, a Blacklist project, has found a home at Atmosphere Entertainment. Matthew Kennedy, repped by Energy Entertainment’s Brooklyn Weaver, sold A Man Called Death, and country singer Miranda Lambert will star in Something in the Water. Other script sales include: - The sequels Enchanted 2, G.I. Joe 3, and Last Vegas 2 are all moving forward with new writers attached. - Quentin Tarantino un-cancelled his western The Hateful Eight. - Will Ferrell and Adam McKay to produce Manimal adaptation for Sony. - Steve Carell producing Brooklyn Family Robinson, based on an idea by David Reynolds, Charlie Hartsock, and Vance Degeneres.

A somewhat slower month. . . . In true retro fashion, Dreamworks developing an animated Felix the Cat film. Even more retro: Medusa, another animated comedy coming from Sony Pictures. Wasting no time at all, as the news of his release broke less than a month ago, Bowe Bergdahl's story will become a feature in America's Last Prisoner of War. Fox Searchlight taking the helm. Will Smith set to star in the as-of-yet untitled NFL concussion project, bringing to light the injuries sustained by ex-football players. And Oliver Stone writing/directing a film about the notorious Edward Snowden. Other script sales include: - Featuring an all-female Delta Force, the action/thriller The Athena Project, based on the novel by Brad Thor. MMA fighter Ronda Rousey attached to star. - A remake of the 1980s thriller War Games is back on track. - Ken Jeong will star in the political road comedy (yes,…