I remember The Rig. Was another Die Hard set on a..

#21, Chain Letter made me laugh out loud, which is perfect for its purported genre, Comedy Drama. The plot of #133, Strangers, is kind of beautiful, even if we've seen it in all it variations a billion times. But the logline that fascinates me the most is #153 for Cold Moon. "'The Birds' but with bats" by John Logan. Interestingly, it was actually made into a movie a few years after, but they renamed it BATS. Maybe they thought that was more direct. Cold Moon could be misinterpreted to mean werewolves. Logan's since made a huge career for himself, but it's charming that his first script sold with such an elegant logline. NOTABLE AMBIENT TRENDS: heart transplants, hostage negotiators I love reading these things.

I did a quick scan of how many of these ended up as recognizable, produced movies and I don't think I even made it to ten. Sure was the silly season back then, as widely reported and acknowledged. Some of them just sound, er, well, a bit shit methinks - Fire in Heaven, Scramjet, Killer Dentist, to name a few. Just plain bad titles, if not bad ideas (and some manage both). A few I rather like the sound of though. Chain Letter, Rock, Scissors, Paper, and Sid's Inferno are all decent concepts that could have made it to the screen (maybe Sid's did in the shape of the universally derided Little Nicky - no idea but I'm not prepared to discuss the latter any further for fear of inciting The Apocalypse). And Bad Moon Rising sounds effing brilliant in a completely awful/awesome way. Spec writers sure do seem on a mission to take down the President. Blades and Countdown are two more of those, to go with Air Force One in years past and the recent spec sales White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen (or whatever they're calling it nowadays). Presumably they're just all variations of 'Die Hard in the White House' or pitches to that effect. Either way, they seem to go down a storm. Wait a minute... Die Hard in a storm. That's genius, I'm off to write it, see you in Cabo. Before I pack, special mention to Human Nature. Great concept, very reminiscent of Used Guys, which was splendid and will presumably pop up on these posts in a week or two. And absolutely should have been made, how it fell through the cracks I'll never understand.

STUDIOS FOX (18) 12% Universal (18) 12% Walt Disney Pics. (11) 7% Columbia Pictures (8) 5% Paramount (7) 5% MGM (6) 4% Interscope (5) 3% Dreamworks SKG (3) 2% Miramax (3) 2% New Line (3) 2% TriStar (3) 2% Turner Pictures (3) 2% Warner Bros (3) 2% Beacon Com. (2) 1% Cinema Line (2) 1% Dimension Films (2) 1% Island Pictures (2) 1% Mandalay (2) 1% Morgan Creek (2) 1% MPCA (2) 1% Phoenix Pictures (2) 1% Propaganda (2) 1% Redeemable Features (2) 1% Spelling Films (2) 1% Trimark (2) 1% Others 1 and less than 1% GENRES Comedy (29) 19% Drama (24) 15% Thriller (21) 14% Romantic Comedy (15) 10% Action (11) 7% Action Thriller (8) 5% Sci-fi (7) 5% Action Adventure (5) 3% Romance (3) 2% Sci-fi Thriller (3) 2% Adventure (3) 2% Comedy Drama (3) 2% Action Comedy (2) 1% Family (2) 1% Black Comedy (2) 1% Action Drama (2) 1% Fantasy (2) 1% Others 1 and less than 1%

Is #81 Drop Dead Gorgeous?

Thanks, Sverrir! Look at Warner Bros. dropping way down the list with only 3 spec purchases. I'll have to go back [when I have time] and see what was going on with them at the exec level. May have been going through a regime change. Also, too, studios go through cycles about spec scripts. Sometimes they way into them, other times they're not. I have seen this happen over and over again in 25 years. On the genre side, Comedy once again #1. Interesting to track Fantasy. Before LOTR in 2002, conventional wisdom was that fantasy was dead. Let's keep an eye on that.

Yep, think so. Good movie.

#15 did that eventually end up as Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo?

I'm going to reveal my ignorance here....no laughing! ; ) Is the 350/650 money split on these specs something like the option/sale or is it sale/backend or what? I've read about all of these (option/sale/backend/) so I'm assuming this is a relavent question. Come on! I can't be the only one who doesn't get it! ; )

Donna, here's what that means. The first figure is the sale price of the script. That money is guaranteed to the writer. The second figure refers to the production bonus payable to the writer upon the commencement of principal photography of the movie [this is dependent upon the writer receiving sole or partial writing credit]. So $350 = $350,000 guaranteed $$ to writer. And $650 = another $300,000 payable to writer if they receive sole credit. If they receive shared credit with another writer, then that figure is reduced by 50%. If they share credit with two other writers, that figure is reduced by 67%. So when you read about a seven-figure deal, that is almost always referring to the production bonus figure, not the front end number.

I see. So when there's only one figure it refers to the writier's sale. If there's two figures, it's the writer's sale first, then the remainder of the money he/she received in conjunction with the other writers brought in although, as used in the example above, 350/650, the writer originally paid the 350K may only get 200 out of the 650. So what is backend and is the option amount (if it's paid on such a project like we're examining here) included in the first number or is that just 'gimme' money for the sake of this argument? I don't know if you've read my latest script, Scott, but I NEED to know these things ; ) (tongue firmly in cheek---but hopefully not for long!)

And why do we seem to keep the same hours, you and I? ; )

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