Script Pipeline

A few specs made it to the next step in May. Fox Searchlight picked up Brian C. Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi’s Pale Blue Dot about a female astronaut whose life begins to unravel after she returns to Earth. Reese Witherspoon set to produce and star. Byron Willinger and Phil De Blasi’s NSA conspiracy thriller spec Command & Control found a home at Vandal Entertainment. Warner Bros. will oversee The Infinite Horizon, a post-apocalyptic Odyssey spec written by Ryan Condal and based on a graphic novel by Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto. Finally, Jeff Morris’ The True Memoirs of an International Assassin, an action-comedy spec about an accountant/aspiring author who is mistaken for a contract killer, has found new life at Netflix after being initially set up in 2009. Kevin James attached to star. Other script sales: – 20th Century Fox is on board Nicholas Stoller’s Friend from Home, a comedy about a college student whose new cool life is unraveled…

March was a great month for sci-fi writers, with numerous projects moving forward at different companies. Warner Bros. picked up Jim Uhls’ spec The Leviathan, Matt Savelloni’s horror/sci-fi spec Temple found a home at Erebus Pictures, Chris Hager’s spec Proxima is moving forward with David Lancaster and Jim Wedaa producing, and 20th Century Fox bought Dan Futterman’s dystopian spec A Shot in the Eye. Outside of the sci-fi world, Benderspink will produce Eric Bress’ spec thriller American Hostage, about home invaders who chose the wrong house. Finally, a few supernatural thriller specs are moving forward, including Descendent by Jeff Buhler and Realm by Rebecca Sonnenshine. Other script sales: – Jason Segel and Drew Pearce to write The Billion Brick Race, a spinoff from The Lego Movie. – Gone Girl‘s Gillian Flynn and 12 Years a Slave‘s Steve McQueen are teaming for the crime/thriller Widows, about four widows attempting to successfully pull off the heist their husbands died…

For the second month in a row, Script Pipeline alums have made some waves: Evan Daugherty has signed on the write the Tomb Raider reboot, and Tripper Clancy will pen Hasbro’s Hacker Camp, each adding another script to their growing slates of projects. In other news, February was a rather busy month. Sony made a few purchases: Sniper Elite, a thriller based on the Gil Shannon novels by Scott McEwen and to be written by Sheldon Turner; Michael Finch and Alex Litvak’s Medieval, which is described as The Dirty Dozen set in the Middle Ages; and Steve Conrad’s adventure/comedy pitch about a driverless car race from Paris to Beijing, Gore Verbinski helming. Brendan O’Brien and Andrew J. Cohen’s comedy The House was part of a bidding war, eventually finding a home at New Line. John Hamburg, Nicholas Stoller, and Ian Helfer sold their comedy Why Him?, a comedy about a feud…

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…