Script Sales

Amblin Partners and Neal Street Productions have picked up Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ spec 1917. Mendes will direct the WWI drama and co-produce with Pippa Harris. Platinum Dunes and Tyler Perry Studios are bringing Ryan Belenzon and Jeffrey Gelber’s spec I Am Yours to Paramount. The project is described as thriller in the vein of Fatal Attraction. Writer Emilia Serrano had two of her comedy specs optioned: The Throwdown and an untitled quinceañera project. The Throwdown follows two Latina American cousins as they fight over a family restaurant they inherited and found a home with Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions. Meanwhile, her quinceañera project follows a 30-year-old woman who brings her family on a work trip disguised as a “double quinceañera” because she missed her first and found a home with 26 Keys Productions and Pascal Pictures. Noah Hawley and Amy Pascal will produce. J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot preemptively picked up Jared Moshe’s spec Aporia, a “grounded sci-fi drama with time-travel elements.” Moshe will direct. Finally, Fangoria Films, Aperture Entertainment, and Cinestate are teaming up for Satanic Panic, a dark comedy spec written by Grady Hendrix. The story follows a pizza delivery girl whose last delivery of the night turns out to be Satanists in need of a virgin sacrifice.

Other spec sales:

– Paul Feig is directing a script written by Emma Thompson! It’s called Last Christmas, it’s a romance set in London, and we couldn’t be more excited. (She’s a double Oscar winner, after all. For writing and acting!) Universal and Calamity Films are producing.

– Shana Feste to write/direct Run Sweetheart Run for Blumhouse. The horror script follows a blind date gone terribly wrong.

– Jason Orley’s 2014 Black List script Big Time Adolescence has found a home with production companies American High and Lost City. Orley will direct.

– David Ayer to write/direct the crime thriller Tax Collector for Cedar Park Entertainment and Cross Creek Pictures. Shia LaBeouf and Bobby Soto to star.

– Joe Nussbaum’s Parent’s Night has landed at Screen Gems. The story follows parents who throw a massive house party when the kids are away on a school trip. It’s apparently based on an actual annual ritual.

– Zemeckis is directing an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches! He’ll co-write with Jack Rapke and co-produce with Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro.

Tom O’Connor’s Cold War spy spec Ironbark has found a home with FilmNation Entertainment. The true story follows Greville Wynne, a British businessman, as he helps the CIA end the Cuban Missile Crisis and avert disaster. Benedict Cumberbatch is set to executive produce and star. Another historical spec landed at Gran Via Productions. This one: Alex Cramer’s Rawhide Down. The screenplay follows the immediate aftermath of John Hinkley’s assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in real time. Paramount Pictures picked up Cory Goodman’s horror spec The Oberline Incident. The plot is being kept under wraps, but it’s been described as high-concept with a female lead. Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures has picked up Crawl, written by Alexandre Aja, Shawn Rasmussen, and Michael Rasmussen. The story follows a young woman trapped in a flooding house with fierce predators during a Category 5 hurricane. Aja will also direct.

Other script sales:

– Dueling Leonard Bernstein projects are a go. First up is Michael Mitnick’s adaption of Leonard Bernstein’s biography written by Humphrey Burton. Cary Fukunaga to direct, Jake Gyllenhaal to star. Next up is Josh Singer’s script Bernstein. Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese will produce, Cooper will direct and star. Life rights were acquired for this one.

– Bill and Ted are finally getting a sequel. Excellent! Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon are back to write, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are back to star, and Dean Parisot is set to direct. Party on, dudes.

– J.J. Abrams and his company Bad Robot picked up Daniel Casey’s subversive superhero script The Heavy. Julius Avery will direct.

– Guy Ritchie to direct Toff Guys from a script he co-wrote with Marn Davies and Ivan Atkinson. The story follows an English drug lord as he tries to sell his business to Oklahoman billionaires.

– Gabriel Sherman is writing a Trump movie for Gidden Media. It’ll be called The Apprentice.

– Nicol Paone’s Friendsgiving has not only found a home at Red Hour Films but has also found an amazing cast: Malin Akerman, Kat Dennings, Jane Seymour, Aisha Tyler, Deon Cole, Ryan Hansen, Chelsea Peretti, Christine Taylor, Wanda Sykes and Margaret Cho are set to star. Ben Stiller and Akerman will produce, Paone will also direct.

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.