Here's an article on spec movie script sales from today's issue of The Wrap:

With Harry Potter casting his last spell, Batman ready to hang up the cape and "The Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise looking ready for dry dock, Hollywood has apparently rediscovered its appetite for original ideas.

More than double the amount of spec scripts -- screenplays written without a contract -- sold this year compared to 2010, according to an exclusive survey by TheWrap’s sister site, ItsontheGrid.com.

In all, 130 specs were snapped up in 2011 ...

“In Hollywood, everyone is in the relationship business.”  This is the opening sentence of an excellent article by Patrick Goldstein in the Calendar section of today’s Los Angeles Times, entitled, “How Did These Films Get Made?” 

Mr. Goldstein’s article discusses several movies from 2011 that featured big stars or big directors, but which bombed at the box office.   Goldstein mentions the Jack Black/Steve Martin disaster, The Big Year, the Johnny Depp dud, The Rum Diary, and Clint Eastwood’s, J. Edgar as big movies that earned ...

Want to make it as a writer in television or the movies?  The opportunities are right in front of you.

Last night I attended a screening at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills of the new George Clooney movie, The Descendants.   A short Q&A followed the screening with director Alexander Payne and screen writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.   Faxon and Rash told the WGA audience that they got their start as writers in the Los Angeles improv group, The Groundlings.   I mentioned ...

Good writing always cheers me up. 2011 may turn out to be an exceptional year for scripted half-hour TV comedy series.   Two and a Half Men seems to have successfully replaced Charlie Sheen with Ashton Kutcher.   Two Broke Girls is the most successful new series on TV.   The Big Bang Theory continues to hold Thursday night for CBS.   Whoever thought CBS would wrest Thursday away from NBC?  New Girl is drawing viewers on ...

In my most recent post I wrote about how I seized an opportunity, got paid to write a script, and now that script was going to be shot.   A director and producer had been hired.   Casting was about to begin.   I’ve been in show business for many years.   I thought by now I had a good sense of when something was going to go and when it was not.   I wrote that post certain ...

Opportunity found me last October.   It found me in an unexpected place, but right on the map of where I’ve told you that opportunity is looking.   Because I was ready with a portfolio of good material, I got a job as a writer in Hollywood.   Hey, isn’t that what I’ve been telling you all along in my book and on this blog?  I sold an idea to a Hollywood production company purely by accident, but entirely ...

Some of the old sitcoms from the 1950’s and ‘60’s can seem dated now and even a little corny.   But to me, the best ones are like classic movies, timeless, and full of examples of the right way to create characters and tell a compelling story.   (I was watching Casablanca last night on TCM, for the five thousandth time, and sobbing as if it were the first time I had ever seen it.   When my wife ...

Blake Snyder wrote that screenwriters are bull-heads.   It’s on Page 11 of Save the Cat, if you’re interested.   “We’re going to bull-head our way through this script no matter what anyone says,” was how Blake described the attitude many writers have toward their latest idea.  

Being a bull-head can be helpful.   It can give you the will to start a script – or even more importantly, to finish one – in spite of the nattering voices of doubt inside of your ...