Woah woah woah. Let's be serious. That sounds cockamamie. Yes, I am using it as it was unintended. Just like zombies, robots, and the apocalypse in that log-line. Tsk tsk. For shame.

This sounds like SHIT!

How is it a spec sale if it's based on a comic? Did the writer basically adapt it for free and then sold it?

@Shawn: This happens occasionally. A spec called "Tiki" sold last year that was inspired by the Tiki Room in Disneyland. You can read about that sale here. There was also this: All You Need Is Kill a spec that sold for $3M based on Japanese novel.

I know for the Kill sale, Harper's agents/manager (forget which one) had bought the rights to the book before he started writing. Instead of pitching the adaptation BEFORE writing it, they had him write it and then brought the finished script as the pitch package when they went to studios. So. I would imagine the rights to a best-selling and critically acclaimed novel in Japan needed some significant cash to obtain, so it's "on spec," but it's on spec by a writer with reps who were willing to splash cash for a book rights acquisition that they were sure they were going to sell.

Can't tell from the article if that's what happened here, but if JT Petty went ahead and wrote the script based on this comic book WITHOUT having the rights secured first, that's the definition of speculative, in addition to being completely ballsy: massive kudos to him if he took that risk and pulled it off.

Is it possible that he wrote the spec script, pitched it and then upon further investigation it was discovered by the studio that it was very similar to a comic?

So, now it's bought on spec, but pushed as "based on" for marketing reasons.