Script Sales

Bo Burnham’s spec script Gay Kid and Fat Chick is moving forward at Paramount Players with director Amy York Rubin at the helm. The dramedy script placed on the 2013 Black List and has been in development ever since. Tooley Productions picked up Tony Gayton’s crime-drama spec Thug. The story follows an aging ex-boxer and enforcer for a San Pedro gangster as he tries to fix his past mistakes and reconnect with his estranged children. Tucker Tooley will produce, and Christian Gudegast (London Has Fallen) will direct. New Line Cinema is moving forward with The Long Walk, adapted by James Vanderbilt from the novel by Stephen King (written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman). Vanderbilt had written the script on spec before New Line picked it up. Peter Dinklage to produce, perhaps star in O’Lucky Day for Legendary Pictures. The script, written by Andrew Dodge, follows a con man who poses as a leprechaun to exact an elaborate scheme of vengeance. Jon S. Baird will direct.

More script sales:

– Chicken Run is getting a sequel! Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell (writers on the first movie) are set to script, and Sam Fell (Flushed Away, Paranorman) will direct.

– Ashley Edward Miller to adapt Red Sonja for Millennium Films.

– Blue Ice Pictures picked up Adriana Maggs and Jane Maggs’ sports biopic Goalie about Canadian NHL player Terry Sawchuk and based on the poem “Night Work” by Randall Maggs and the book Sawchuk: The Troubles and Triumphs of the World’s Greatest Goalie by David Dupuis.

– Oscar-winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) is set to write and direct a movie based on his graphic novel The American Way: Those Above And Those Below, written with artist Georges Jeanty. Jason Blum will produce.

– TriStar Pictures picked up Alex Garland’s family/fantasy script The Toymaker’s Secret. Paloma Baeza will direct.

– Clea DuVall to direct Happiest Season, which she co-wrote with Mary Holland, for TriStar Pictures.

– Lorne Michaels to produce Baby Nurse, written by Austin Winsberg. Leslie Jones and Colin Jost are set to star.

Last month in spec sales, David Koepp sold his feature supernatural thriller You Should Have Left to Blumhouse Productions. The script, which Koepp will also direct, follows a screenwriter and his family for a week in a house they’ve rented, but mysterious things happen as he tries to finish the script for a horror movie sequel. The H Collective and Busted Shark Productions have teamed to produce Aaron W. Sala’s horror script The Beast. After a woman is stranded alone on an island, she has to face her worst fears. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. picked up Madison Turner’s untitled WWII spec about the 761st Regiment, an all black regiment that paved the way for military desegregation. Michael B. Jordan will produce. Millennium Films and Electric Pictures have picked up Adam Alleca’s Michael Zero, a sci-fi action that follows a man who has to hunt down his own clones, who were created to be soldiers but have decided to go after the corporate state that made them instead. Tim Blake Nelson is set to direct. Finally, Platinum Dunes and Skydance Productions picked up Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese’s action spec 6 Underground. Michael Bay to produce/direct.

Other script sales:

– After tumbling out of bed, stumbling to the kitchen, and pouring themselves cups of ambition, Rashida Jones and Pat Resnick signed on to script the 9 to 5 remake. Resnick also wrote the original film.

– Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers is making it to the big screen, with James Wan and Roy Lee producing.

– Ashleigh Powell has been tapped to adapt Melissa Albert’s YA novel The Hazel Wood for Sony and Columbia.

– Paramount picked up James V. Simpson’s sci-fi script Intruders about a family defending themselves from alien home invaders.

– Tracy Letts to adapt A.J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window. Scott Rudin will produce, Joe Wright will direct.

Michael De Luca Productions picked up two sci-fi specs this month: Infinitum by Marc Guggenheim, which is described as a sci-fi love story similar to Memento, and Varietal by Adam Bloom, which is a psychological sci-fi thriller centered on a married couple. Infinitum landed at Sony while Varietal went to Universal. Legendary Pictures has teamed with LeBron James’ SpringHill Entertainment for Taylor Materne’s sports drama spec Hustle. The story follows a basketball scout who travels to China and brings back a Chinese streetball phenomenon. Annapurna Pictures and Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Gloria Sanchez Productions have picked up Booksmart, a teen comedy written by Katie Silberman. Booksmart follows two friends on the eve of graduation who set out on a night of fun after realizing they spent their entire high school years focused on their educations. Olivia Wilde is set to direct. Finally, Studio 8 and Scoop Productions picked up Naked Is The Best Disguise, a sci-fi spec written by Graham Moore (Oscar-winning writer of The Imitation Game). Moore is set to direct as well.

Other script sales:

– John Logan to adapt Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci biography for Paramount and Appian Way. Leonardo DiCaprio to produce, possibly star.

– Simon Farnaby will write the Action Man adaptation for Paramount Players and Hasbro Studios.

– Game of Thrones show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will write and produce a new trilogy of Star Wars films for Disney and Lucasfilm.

– Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner have been tapped to script the sequel to Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which they also cowrote.

– Atlanta writers Stephen Glover and Jamal Olori are set to write the House Party remake for New Line Cinema.

– Stephen Chbosky to direct Dr. Seuss, a biopic written by Jonathon E. Stewart and Eyal Podell.

Closing out 2017, Hollywood slowed down in December on account of the holiday season. Warner Bros. and Safehouse Pictures picked up Leo Sardarian’s sci-fi/action spec The Expansion Project. The script follows a rookie female marine who ends up stranded on a planet. San Andreas‘s Brad Peyton is attached to direct. Guillermo del Toro’s Del Toro Productions is teaming with Fox Searchlight and Phantom Four Films to produce the supernatural horror/thriller Antlers. Written by Nick Antosca and Henry Chaisson, the spec follows a young teacher who discovers a deadly supernatural secret connected to the father of one of her students. Hostiles director Scott Cooper is currently in talks. Rickey Castleberry and Zimran Jacob’s college comedy Swag has found a home with Estevan/Sheen Productions. Kevin Pollack to direct.

Other script sales:

– Rashida Jones to adapt the graphic novel Goldie Vance for Twentieth Century Fox. Jones will also direct.

– Mairghread Scott to write the animated feature Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors for Marvel Entertainment.

– Guillermo del Toro will write and direct an adaptation of the noir thriller Nightmare Alley for Fox Searchlight.

– Greg Pierce to adapt Hannah Kent’s novel Burial Rights. Jennifer Lawrence is attached to produce/star, and Call Me By Your Name‘s Luca Guadagnino will direct.

– Joel David Moore to write/direct an adaption of Huh Jung’s Hide and Seek for CJ Entertainment.

– Mark L. Smith has been tapped to script a new Star Trek movie, based on an idea from Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino will possibly direct.