It was a slower month to start the year. Twentieth Century Fox and Sunswept Entertainment have picked up Skyward, Joe Ballarini’s drama spec based on two families that build a hot-air balloon to escape over the Berlin Wall. Based on a true story. Another true story spec: Samuel Franco and Evan Kilgore’s drama spec Keeper of the Diary found a home with Fox Searchlight and Weimaraner Republic Pictures. The script follows Anne Frank’s father who struggles to find a publisher for his daughter’s diary after World War II. Universal Pictures won out in a bidding war for Rowan Athale’s spec Little America, which takes place after America has become so bankrupt that China begins calling all the shots. Michael Bay to produce, Athale to also direct. Finally, Prime Universe Productions and Marlowe Pictures are teaming for Slayer, an action/fantasy spec written by Joel Dorland. The story follows a fisherman who seeks vengeance on four demonic knights who kidnapped his wife and slaughtered his village.
Other script sales include:
– Paramount picked up Action Park, written by John Altschuler, Dave Krinsky, and Johnny Knoxville. Tim Kirby to direct, Knoxville to star/produce.
– Molly Smith Metzler to adapt Ali Benjamin’s YA novel The Thing About Jellyfish for OddLot. Reese Witherspoon to produce.
– Joby Harold has been tapped to rewrite The Flash for DC/Warner Bros.
– Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s company Gary Sanchez will produce the 2015 Black List script Crook County, written by Aaron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, who will both direct as well.
– Stephen Gaghan to adapt the video game Tom Clancy’s The Division. Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain to star.
– Kenya Barris to write the White Men Can’t Jump remake for Twentieth Century Fox.