Script Pipeline

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…

January was a great month for script sales. Hat’s off to Adam Lorenzo’s for his script sale of “Lidsville” to Dreamworks Animation. Based on the 70’s t.v. show, this children’s fantasy is about personified talking hats and headgear; Conrad Vernon is set to direct. Warner Brothers picked up Steven King’s “The Stand,” a story about a worldwide flu epidimic; although made into a mini series in the nineties, producer Roy Lee will be bringing this Horor/Sci-Fi to the big screen. Dan Fogelman sold his script “My Mother’s Curse” to Paramount, with SNL’s Lorne Michaels along with John Goldwyn to helm the project. Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand to act/produce in this road comedy. Other sales include: -“Cobu 3D,” written by Duane Adler, a dance/music project set up at Lionsgate -“Age of Rage,” written by Mark Heyman, a sci-fi at Fox Searchlight, Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) to direct. -“Men…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…