Script Pipeline

A relatively busy month of script sales to close out 2010. Dan Brown (The DaVinci Code) will see his next film adaptation, The Lost Symbol, in the works. Judd Apatow to produce and direct a spinoff of Knocked Up, and James Franco to write/direct the drama As I Lay Dying and Blood Meridian. And Disney’s now making movies about rides that never even opened with The Museum of the World. But most importantly, Script Pipeline “Recommend” writer Micah Barnett sold The Rabbit to Warner Bros. for the mid-six figures. Dan Lin producing.

Other sales include:

–The Three Stooges. The movie. ‘Nuff said. –Ridley Scott will direct The Color of Lightning.

–The biopic of Louis Zamperini, war hero and Olympic track star, Unbroken.

–George Clooney to star in The Monster of Florence, a mystery based on a true story.

–The world of valets: the last occupation not represented on film. Adam Sandler and Kevin James will produce and possibly star in Valet Guys.

Plenty of action/thrillers in a fairly slow month for sales. Leonardo DiCaprio will produce and star in Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination, which exposes a fresh perspective and potentially real secret behind the JFK assasination. Men in Black will see its third installment–Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones reprise their roles, alongside Alec Baldwin and Emma Thompson. An updated version of the Hitchcock classic The 39 Steps, a crime/comedy starring Brad Pitt, and yet another new Steve Carrell project, Imagine, round out the major sales.

Other sales include:

–The action/thriller spec Game Theory, to be co-produced by Summit Entertainment and Anonymous Content.

–Remake of the 1992 hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And what with the vampire craze. . . well, this one’s a no-brainer.

–Paranormal Activity 3. ‘Nuff said. To be released October 2011.

–A biopic on Sam Kinison, entitled Brother Sam.
–The Lions of Lucerne, a presidential kidnapping action/thriller set in Utah.

Comedy is in the air for the fall. October brought us a few major sales, including Dan Goor’s El Presidente, acquired by Warner Brothers and focusing on an “overly-committed Secret Service agent who is assigned to guard the country’s worst former president, a bumbling sleaze” after someone threatens to kill the ex-president. In non-comedy sales, writer/director Olatunde Osunsanmi sold his sci-fi spec Dark Moon to Warner Brothers in the high six figures. Also looks like a sequel to Top Gun is in the works, as well as a remake of Hellraiser and an adaptation of The Twilight Zone.

Other sales include:

–Take My Wife: a guy tries to get out of paying alimony to his ex-wife by finding her a new husband, which backfires once he falls back in love with her. Written by Greg Coolidge & Kirk Ward. Tyler Perry and Dwayne Johnson attached to star.

–Finally an adaptation of another comic strip: Bill Keane’s Family Circus will have a big screen version. Sadly, the world still waits for Pearls Before Swine’s day in the theaters.

–Across the pond, British production company Warp Films has purchased The Organ Grinder’s Monkey from Jake and Dinos Chapman. A talented talking chimp outshines a struggling artist. Daniel Craig, Kevin Spacey, and Rosamund Pike star.

–In the vein of other highly successful Christopher Columbus films (the explorer, not the director), McG is set to produce a film about Columbus’ discovery of America—300 style.
–Seth MacFarlane is attached to co-write, direct, and star in Ted, an R-rated buddy comedy about a guy whose teddy bear comes to life. Mark Wahlberg attached to star.

A mix of genres (more so than in recent months, anyway) dot the landscape. Plenty of specs, some random 3D projects, and fewer overall adaptations this month. Leonardo DiCaprio will produce, and potentially star, in Portofino, a thriller so secret even the plot is thoroughly ambiguous. A biopic on former president Ronald Reagan is in the works, as is one on John DeLorean. The jury’s out on which one will be more awesome. . . . And watch out Stephen King fans: arguably the most epic of his novels finally gets a shot at the big screen, The Dark Tower series is set to begin.

Other notable sales include:

–Guillermo Del Toro will helm DreamWorks Animation’s Trollhunters, what’s sure to be a visually-packed script.

–Rob Zombie returns to the director’s chair with The Lords of Salem, about a group of witches in modern-day Salem.

–Little America: a teenage prostitute on the run bonds with a truck driver after she accidentally kills a gang member. Fortunately, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are producing. Oscar written all over it.

–A new film featuring Tom Clancy’s iconic character Jack Ryan. Our guess is it’ll have something to do with terroists in some foreign country.

–An adaptation of Goosebumps, based on the RL Stine children’s series that Script Pipeline General Manager Matt Misetich did not read all issues of when he was already in high school, nor was his favorite One Day in Horrorland.

Riding his train of popularity, Steve Carrell hops on board another comedy, a remake of an Argentine film, A Boyfriend for My Wife. Kind of self-explanatory. . . . The immensely popular comic series (well, sort of–at least for the seventies) Iron Fist is getting a film version, and Angelina Jolie dips her feet in the romance/war drama genre again in an as-of-yet untitled Serbian/Bosnian love story. And if that doesn’t get you crying, don’t weep too hard fans of the 1980s (all 12 of you): the Jaden Smith version of Karate Kid will see a sequel.

Other notable sales include:

–Morgan Creek will take on the Tupac story. Antoine Fuqua is set to direct.

–A 3-D film chronicling the Battle of Midway during WWII.

–Piranha 3-D = sequel. No word yet on what dimension it’ll be in. . . .

— The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are returning to their live-action renditions. Hopefully less retro muppet-like than the last version.

–Take that super-cool Jesse Eisenberg Facebook movie: Google has its own story hitting the screen with Googled: The End of the World As We Know It.

A flood of comic book and graphic novel adaptations continue to move into development, including The Untamed, A Contract with God, Astro City, The Strange Case of Hyde, and the likely much-anticipated Xerxes, the prequel to Frank Miller’s bloody and epic masterpiece, 300. A vampire twist on the biblical story of Cain, a handful of novel adaptations, such as a live-action story of the orignal Little Mermaid tale, and yet another version of South Pacific (not that there’s anything wrong with that. . . .) fill out the rest of the month.

Other selected sales include:

–Guillermo del Toro will helm the Disney-inspired pic The Haunted Mansion.

–Also from Disney, Tink, focusing on. . . well, who do you think? Tinkerbell. Elizabeth Banks will star in the live-action film.

–The Grimm tale Hansel and Gretel will have a 3D re-telling.

–Nia Vardalos to pen Happy Mother’s Day, a road comedy involving four moms.
–Echoing shades of Groundhog Day, the teen comedy Before I Fall, which centers on a student reliving the same day over and over again.