Looks like only 7.6% of these scripts were actually produced. 5. Down With Love 12. John Q 35. Bruce Almighty 49. Godsend 57. American Sweethearts 78. Fifty First Kisses 81. Troy There may have been more, perhaps under different titles, or I just may have missed them. Four are comedies, one is a historical epic and two are thrillers. Not a lot out of 92 spec sales though. Is this sort of ratio normal? Do the majority of spec scripts remain on the development shelf?

Following the gender trends here! What a wonderful thing you've all done! I'm thrilled! Thank you!

Warner Bros. Pictures - 10 Columbia Pictures - 6 Fox 2000 - 5 New Line Cinema - 5 Universal Pictures - 4 Twentieth Century Fox - 3 Walt Disney Pictures - 3 Dreamworks Pictures - 2 Fox Searchlight - 2 MGM - 1 Miramax - 1 Sony - 1 Paramount - 1 United Artists - 1

Lydia, one of the many reasons I wanted to aggregate this information was to get a handle on the percentage of purchased spec scripts that got produced vs. those that didn't. The number of studio acquisitions to get produced, I've heard, is between 10-20%. I've never seen any actual figures in this regard. In one of the previous lists, someone totaled produced movies and it came out to 17%. Here we have - perhaps - 7.6%. So maybe that 10-20% figure is correct [if we can extrapolate numbers from spec scripts to other acquisitions]. Once we post all the years, I'm going to ask to go through and make a comprehensive list of produced movies to see if we can get something more definitive.

Thanks, Eric. Here we go with WB back on top. There was that precipitous drop in 1996 and a #2 finish a few years later, but other than that, WB has consistently been the #1 buyer of spec scripts, a trend that continues even to this day.

A more difficult and time consuming task, perhaps, but it would be interesting to know more about the writers behind these sales: how many were first-timers, how many veterans, how many went on to sell more specs and actually become working writers, etc.

66. Brown Sugar definitely was produced and is near and dear to myself and my male best friend of 20 plus years and it had a fab soundtrack. Also suspecting/feels like that First Daughter film got made...hmmm

You can add First Daughter to the list of produced specs. I actually read for the lead in that film and they of course went with a star. My doppelgänger at the time, Katie Holmes. (damn her crooked smile) If I remember correctly the reading was at Paramount. Hard to forget when you land an audition that huge!

Also, almost the exact same script was getting passed around called Chasing Liberty(ended up starring Mandy Moore). Both were released in 2004 to awful reviews. So the logline on this list could have been describing either.

It seems like spec scripts are a studio's R&D division. I wonder if an exec's first task is to go over their roster of specs and see which ones are worth watering.

Teddy, we listed every single first-timer we could corroborate, you'll see them in Notes for each item. The other items are pretty difficult -- who became working writers -- and would require research on each first-timer. We may get to that once we have posted each year's list. There's a ton of information here waiting to be assimilated which should give us greater insight into the ebb and flow of the spec market. But the very first thing writers can do is simply browse the loglines and see if they can springboard off them to a new idea to write.

Thanks for that heads-up, Romona.

Thanks, too, summertime. Sorry you didn't get the part!

Precisely. The percentages are probably even worse in TV.

Sorry, I missed the 'first time writer' in the additional info. I see that now.

That was the title I couldn't remember! I actually think the logline fits this title as it involved Europe whereas First Daughter was domestic based I believe.

At least The Guest was also made.. it's the Ashton Kutcher movie My Boss's Daughter..

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