2009 OWA Scorecard: Sony Animation through Universal
by Jason Scoggins
February 4, 2010
Here’s the sixth installment of my look back at the studios’ 2009 open writing assignment activity, covering Sony Animation through Universal (and Universal/Illumination Entertainment). I meant to post this while I was at Sundance, but I lost a bunch of work when my laptop was stolen there last week and I had to reconstruct it this week. I'll have the final post, covering Walden Media through The Weinstein Co., up later today as well.
The full 2009 OWA Scorecard will be available via PDF starting next week, and the only way to get a copy of it will be to fill out the form at the top of the right-hand column of this blog. The grids are even easier to read in that format, and the document will include a summary grid with all the top-level numbers and a quickie analysis. So if you haven't already, sign up now. And don't worry, we won't sell or rent out your information to anyone, we'll just shoot you a promo email about www.itsonthegrid.com every once in a while. (That's a fair trade, don't you think?)
I explained how and why I’m doing this exercise in Part 1, but here’s what you need to know in order to understand the below grids:
· I’m taking copies of one big talent agency’s OWA Grid from six points throughout 2009 and comparing them side-by-side to see the number of OWAs at each company, as well as which projects were particularly active last year.
· To keep the below grids concise and consistent, I’m not differentiating between projects that came off the grid because the assignment was filled or for some other reason (e.g., the project becoming inactive, moving to another studio, etc.), which is why I’ve labeled any project that fell off the grid “Closed” rather than “Filled.”
Part 1 of this series covered CBS Films and Columbia Pictures and is available here. Part 2 covered Dimension, DreamWorks, Focus and a few others and is available here. Part 3 covered the Fox labels and is available here. Part 4 covered Gold Circle through New Regency and is available here. Part 5 covered Overture through Screen Gems and is available here.
SONY PICTURES ANIMATION
|
Month
|
OWAs
|
Closed
|
New
|
|
April
|
1
|
|
|
|
May
|
1
|
1:
How To Live Forever
|
1:
Dog
Overboard aka Untitled Sophie Tucker Project
|
|
July
|
3
|
0
|
2:
Fixed
Futureopolis
|
|
August
|
3
|
0
|
0
|
|
October
|
4
|
0
|
1:
Duck And Quail
|
|
December
|
4
|
0
|
0
|
Recap: 5 projects on the grid in 2009, 1 of
which was closed (the one on the grid in April, How To Live Forever).
SONY PICTURES – STAGE 6 FILMS
|
Month
|
OWAs
|
Closed
|
New
|
|
April
|
0
|
|
|
|
May
|
3
|
0
|
3:
Lakeview
Terrace 2
The Eyes
of Laura Mars
Quarantine
2
|
|
July
|
4
|
0
|
1:
Obsessed 2
|
|
August
|
3
|
1:
The Eyes of Laura Mars
|
0
|
|
October
|
2
|
1:
Quarantine 2
|
0
|
|
December
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
Recap: 4 projects on the grid in 2009, 2 of
which were closed.
SPITFIRE PICTURES
|
Month
|
OWAs
|
Closed
|
New
|
|
April
|
2
|
|
|
|
May
|
2
|
1:
Shanghai
aka Ace In The Hole
|
1:
Keith Moon aka Moon
|
|
July
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
|
August
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
|
October
|
3
|
0
|
1:
Sliding Doors (remake)
|
|
December
|
4
|
0
|
1:
The Farm
|
Recap: 4 projects on the grid in 2009, 1 of
which was closed.
SPYGLASS
|
Month
|
OWAs
|
Closed
|
New
|
|
April
|
1
|
|
|
|
May
|
2
|
0
|
1:
The Food of Love
|
|
July
|
2
|
1:
The Food of Love
|
1:
Family Reunion
|
|
August
|
3
|
0
|
1:
Dance Revolution
|
|
October
|
3
|
0
|
0
|
|
December
|
2
|
2:
Dance Revolution
Family Reunion
|
1:
The Game
|
Recap: 5 projects on the grid in 2009, 3 of
which were closed. The project on
the grid in April (On A Short Leash) was still open in December.
SUMMIT
|
Month
|
OWAs
|
Closed
|
New
|
|
April
|
5
|
|
|
|
May
|
4
|
3:
Home
Before Daylight: A Grateful Dead
Movie
Houdini
If I
Stay
|
2:
Deviant
Behavior aka Golden Gate
Night
Mary
|
|
July
|
3
|
2:
Countdown
Deviant
Behavior aka Golden Gate
|
1:
Warm Bodies
|
|
August
|
3
|
0
|
0
|
|
October
|
3
|
1:
Pyrates
|
1:
Reply To All
|
|
December
|
3
|
1:
Night Mary
|
1:
Alibi
|
Recap: 10 projects on the grid in 2009, 7 of
which closed. All 5 projects on
the grid in April were closed by December.
UNIVERSAL
|
Month
|
OWAs
|
Closed
|
New
|
|
April
|
55
|
|
|
|
May
|
60
|
10:
Chasing
The Dragon: A Veteran
Journalist’s Firsthand Account of the 1949 Chinese Revolution
Coma Boy
Counter
Clockwise
Goliath
Awaits
Midnight
Delivery
Party
Boys
Quantum
Leap
The
Better Woman aka The Younger Woman
The
Creed of Violence
The
Secret
|
15:
Barbie
Creature
From The Black Lagoon
Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained
Full
Metal Panic
Head
Games
Jesus
Christ Superstar
Julius
MPD-Psycho
Scarpa
The
Adventures of Charles Fort
The
Coral Sea
The
People Under The Stairs
The
Vampire Chronicles
Unt.
Steve Carrell Project
VIY
|
|
July
|
73
|
3:
Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained
Scarpa
So I
Fell in Love With an Assassin aka Untitled Jason P. Howe Project
|
16:
Bar
Mitzvah Disco
Battlestar
Galactica
Best
Man-A-Thon
Cookie
Queen aka Unt. Isla Fisher Girl Scout Project
Germs
Gregory
Burns
Ouija
Board
The
Bachelorette
The
Birds
The
Bourne Identity 4
The
Funhouse
The
Killers
The
Remarkable Fellows
Tupac
Monster
High aka Untitled Mattel Musical Project
Wedding
Olympics
|
|
August
|
73
|
6:
Arcana
City of
Fear aka Brazilian Prison Gang Project
Criminal
Macabre
Hassle
Man
The
Parsifal Mosaic
Shinobi
|
6:
Bridget
Jones 3
The Art
of Racing in the Rain
The
Traveler
The
Twits
The
Virus Hunter
Untitled
Nicholas Wynding Refn Project
|
|
October
|
73
|
12:
Bomber’s Row
Cookie
Queen aka Unt. Isla Fisher Girl Scout Project
Miss Captivity
MPD-Psycho
Mrs. Pigglewiggle
Nightmare Academy
The Birds
The Bourne Identity 4
The Little Mermaid
The Power of Duff
The Traveler
The Twits
|
12:
100 Weddings
Floriana
Mask
Merman
Pop Up Book of Nightmares
Primordia
Sick Day
Stretch Armstrong
The Big Clock
The Once and Future King
This Gun For Hire
Untitled Barry Manilow Proj.
|
|
December
|
63
|
21:
100
Weddings
A
Flowering Evil aka Untitled Joan Root Project
Best
Man-A-Thon
Bridget
Jones 3
Clue
Gregory
Burns
Jesus
Christ Superstar
Juliet
N.W.A.
Ouija
Board
Primordia
The
Coral Sea
The
Nutty Professor III
The Once
and Future King
The
Wheel of Time: Eye of the World
Tupac
Untitled
Barry Manilow Proj.
Untitled
Edison Chen Project
Untitled
J.J. Abrams Earthquake Project
Untitled
Steve Carrell Project
VIY
|
11:
American
Pie 4
Around
the World in 80 Dates
Born
Free
Endless
Love
Expedition
6 aka Too Far From Home
Namath
Night
Before Christmas
Playboy
aka Hugh Hefner Project
The
Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft
Untitled
Anthony Leonardi Project
Untitled
Tim Story Project
|
Recap: 115 projects on the grid in 2009, of
which 52 were closed as of December.
23 of the 55 projects on the grid in April were still open as of
December.
You might be saying to yourself, “Good heavens, that’s a lot of open writing
assignments!” And you’d be
absolutely right…but wait until you see the numbers for Warner Bros. Like Paramount, the bulk of Universal’s
OWA activity happened in the second half of the year once the Comcast/NBC
Universal deal solidified and the studio's executive shuffle settled down.
UNIVERSAL PICTURES – ILLUMINATION
ENTERTAINMENT
|
Month
|
OWAs
|
Closed
|
New
|
|
April
|
2
|
|
|
|
May
|
3
|
0
|
1:
Untitled Animal Comedy
|
|
July
|
2
|
3:
The
Night Tourist
Untitled
Animal Comedy
Unt. Meet
The Parents-esque Comedy
|
2:
Let It Rain
Where’s Waldo
|
|
August
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
|
October
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
|
December
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
Recap: 5 projects on the grid in 2009, of
which 3 were closed (including both of the projects on the grid in April).
About The Scoggins Reports:
The Scoggins Reports (Jason Scoggins’ Spec Market Roundup, Spec Market Scorecard and now this OWA Scorecard) are terribly unscientific analyses of the feature film development business based on information culled from a variety of public and non-public sources. These are by no means official statistics, merely a fairly complete summary. Past editions of The Scoggins Reports can be found in the archives of The Business of Show Institute (http://bit.ly/2HRZ67) as well as on Scoggins’ website: http://www.lifeonthebubble.com. Past editions of the OWA Scorecards can be found at http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.
Details on each person, project and company in the Reports are also available at http://www.itsonthegrid.com, a subscription-supported, web-based database of feature film development information launched in late 2009 by Scoggins and several other literary managers. For daily posts of new and updated spec script, OWA and ODA information, check out the IOTG blog here: http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.
About Scoggins:
Jason Scoggins is a partner at Protocol, a literary management and production company. He manages writers, directors and producers of film and TV alongside Protocol’s founding partners Brian Inerfeld and John Ufland. Follow him here: http://twitter.com/itsonthegrid.
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