2009 OWA
Scorecard: Gold Circle through New
Regency
by Jason Scoggins
January 19, 2010
Here’s the fourth installment of my look back at the studios’ 2009 open writing
assignment activity, covering Gold Circle through New Regency. I’m powering through the remaining
buyers this week and will post them once or twice daily here at http://blog.itsonthegrid.com. I’m also pulling all of the scorecards
together in one document, and if you’d like to receive a PDF copy of it,
there’s a sign-up form at the top of the right-hand column.
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.
GOLD CIRCLE FILMS
|
Month |
OWAs |
Closed |
New |
|
April |
6 |
|
|
|
May |
6 |
0 |
0 |
|
July |
4 |
2: The Amy Biehl Story The Haunting in New York |
0 |
|
August |
4 |
0 |
0 |
|
October |
4 |
0 |
0 |
|
December |
3 |
2: Breaking News Inside Passage |
1: If You Could See Me Now |
Recap: 7 projects on the grid in 2009, 4 of
which closed. Four of the six
projects on the grid in April were closed by December.
LIONSGATE
|
Month |
OWAs |
Closed |
New |
|
April |
6 |
|
|
|
May |
2 |
5: Agent In Place Cadavers Deal With The Devil God And California Warlock |
1: Nurse |
|
July |
1 |
1: Nurse |
0 |
|
August |
5 |
0 |
4: Atlas Shrugged Cover Your Assets God And California The Broke Diaries |
|
October |
8 |
2: Atlas Shrugged The Last Equation |
5: Conan The Barbarian Nurse Pride & Prejudice & Zombies The Vatican Tapes Will You Be My Black Friend |
|
December |
6 |
3: Conan The Barbarian God And California Nurse |
1: The Game |
Recap: 16 projects on the grid in 2009, 11 of
which closed. All 6 from April
were closed by December.
Technically, there were only 14 projects on the grid for Lionsgate in 2009,
since Nurse and God And California went off the grid in the first half of the
year and popped back up in the second half.
MANDATE
|
Month |
OWAs |
Closed |
New |
|
April |
3 |
|
|
|
May |
4 |
0 |
1: Dancing In The Wings |
|
July |
4 |
0 |
0 |
|
August |
4 |
0 |
0 |
|
October |
3 |
1: Dancing In The Wings |
0 |
|
December |
1 |
2: Journeys
With George aka On The Bus Monkey’s
Paw |
0 |
Recap: 4 projects on the grid in 2009, three
of which closed. Just Another Love
Story was the one project on the grid in April that didn’t close by December.
MGM
|
Month |
OWAs |
Closed |
New |
|
April |
2 |
|
|
|
May |
2 |
0 |
0 |
|
July |
4 |
1: Death Wish |
3: Dirty
Rotten Scoundrels Executive
Vice President in Charge of Mergers and Acquisitions David M. Murch’s
Adventures in the Land of Zametherea The
Outer Limits |
|
August |
4 |
0 |
0 |
|
October |
4 |
0 |
0 |
|
December |
5 |
0 |
1: Valley Girl |
Recap: 6 projects on the grid in 2009, just one
of which closed (no surprise). War
Games was the project on the grid in April that wasn’t closed by December.
MIRAMAX
|
Month |
OWAs |
Closed |
New |
|
April |
4 |
|
|
|
May |
4 |
0 |
0 |
|
July |
3 |
1: Friends Like These |
0 |
|
August |
2 |
1: Tell No One |
0 |
|
October |
2 |
1: The Unnamed |
1: 32 Candles |
|
December |
1 |
1: 32 Candles |
0 |
Recap: 5 projects on the grid in 2009, 4 of
which closed. Indignation was the
project on the grid in April that wasn’t closed by December.
1/19/2010 Update: I had lunch today with a motion picture
lit agent from one of the big four agencies who told me Disney intends to re-launch
Miramax as a label for projects written and/or directed by the parent studio’s
up-and-coming talent that don’t fit the rest of their brands (Bruckheimer,
Disney, DreamWorks, Marvel, Touchstone).
This would explain those rumors from last Fall about former Fox Atomic exec
Debbie Liebling leaving Fox to join the Disney label. (She ended up President of Production at
Universal.)
NEW LINE
|
Month |
OWAs |
Closed |
New |
|
April |
10 |
|
|
|
May |
9 |
1: Venus Fixer |
0 |
|
July |
10 |
1: Catfight |
2: Horrible Bosses Private Benjamin |
|
August |
12 |
0 |
2: Gears of War Parkour |
|
October |
7 |
7: Demon
Streets Gears of
War Hairspray
2 Horrible
Bosses Journey
to the Center of the Earth 2 Project
A Straight
Outta Compton |
2: Cryptozoologists! Vacation
Sequel aka National Lampoon’s Vacation Sequel |
|
December |
6 |
3: Macgyver Modern
Bride aka Unt. Bridal Comedy Puberty |
2: Puckface
aka Untitled Sean Avery Project The King
of Kong |
Recap: 18 projects on the grid in 2009, 12 of
which closed. All 10 from April
were closed by December.
NEW REGENCY
|
Month |
OWAs |
Closed |
New |
|
April |
7 |
|
|
|
May |
5 |
2: Beat The Reaper Love Me If You Dare |
0 |
|
July |
7 |
2: Capricorn One (remake) The End of Eternity |
4: Click to
Print fka Little Big War Medieval Seven
Fires of Madmoiselle What
Alice Forgot |
|
August |
8 |
0 |
1: Big Momma’s House 3 |
|
October |
11 |
2: Big Momma’s House 3 Pets |
5: Cutlass Island Daredevil 2 Mr. Romance Uglies Untitled Haitian Zombie Proj. |
|
December |
10 |
4: Mancamp Medieval Spooks aka MI-5 What Alice Forgot |
3: Father Knows Best I Do My Name Is Memory |
Recap: 20 projects on the grid in 2009, 10 of which closed. All 7 from April were closed by December.
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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