Screenwriting : BIG $3M SPEC SALE!!! (Good or Bad) by Anthony McBride

I think it's incredible that Natan sold his script for so much, Anthony McBride! I've been writing scripts since high school. I've sold short scripts, and I've had a lot of feature ghostwriting jobs, but I haven't sold a feature spec script yet. All the writing, reading scripts, watching webinars, etc. weren't for nothing. They were preparation. Natan's sale encourages me to keep writing my specs, networking, and pitching.

The script is not creativity or craft, it's a startup, it's a business. and investors invest not in a startup, but in its creator. there are many people who have come up with interesting startups, but they have not been given money. this happens because the investor does not believe in the creator as a leader. it follows from this that the screenwriter must work on his image, must work on himself, on his authority. to make the investor believe, this author can be trusted.

The writer, Natan Dotan, had a connection in the industry, and through that he was able to meet with reps from Untitled. So that's what the problem is for you AM. You're not a jerk. You just don't have anyone who can get you a meeting with a big agency.

Wonderfull for the individual, debatable for the community. Screenwriting already has a problem with people thinking it's a get rich quick scheme and this will only invigorate that. Expect more obsession with the lottery wins at the cost of any focus on long-term career building.

The lesson to walk away with is that this is complete chaos. You can struggle your entire life and get nowhere, while someone else is in the right place at the right time. The best way to find any sanity with the arts is to accept the madness behind it all.

I'd also take everything about the story with a huge pinch of salt. We've been here before.

Untitled's other big spec sale, the one for Ryan Brennan, came from the top of the Black List. How much does it cost to get to the top of the Black List? Quite a bit. It would be interesting to know how much he spent to get there.

One bad thing about a sale for $3mil is that the production budget for a script at that price would be in the $100mil range. How many movies get made at that cost? Not a lot. So the odds of this script getting produced aren't great. I'd prefer to get less money for a project that would get produced. Just my preference.

IMO, a spec script is always creativity and craft, regardless of writing for a year or many years. From my POV, whataboutisms do not apply - sometimes it's lightning in a bottle, sometimes it's dozens of rewrites over a decade and some. It's also anticipating future trends, creating new trends, and networking. One writer's sale is never a loss for others, but it can be a learning tool for the millions of other spec writers around the world.

Richard Buzzell we had everyone posting that speech from last year about making more films for less, so the wealth was better distributed and more films were created. Amazing how quickly things are forgotten.

Personally, I'd rather see fifty writers get $60K, and then another $60K next year. But then, we all think we're going to be that one lucky person, right?

As for making the top of the Black List. How many remember the background of who was at the top when it launched?

Scott Myers posted there's been 7 or 8 major spec sales for 2024. That isnt exactly great. Im sure there's hundreds of sales every year that never gets mention in trades. Not a sexy headline as "3M+" spec sale by an unknown. This is Hollywood, man. They sell Make-believe

TBH, I'm struggling to get my head around the economics of it all. Bidding wars during the indie revolution in the 90's I can understand, because those long-tail returns on cult films could be worth more than a block busters's theatrical release. There were more studios, more mid-scale prod-cos, and a higher bar to entry, so supply and demand were a lot more even. IP wasn't really a thing. Agencies were able to generate hype easily. A lot of studio heads were gamblers with artistic intentions.

Now you're telling me, in today's Hollywood, where the only real money is in theatrical, where corporatisation has taken over, where agencies now have stigmas attached, where IP is critical, and there's an overwhelming abundance of writers submitting to a handful of places, there can be half a dozen scripts considered so good, so worth the investment over anything else, they're worth fighting over?

I don't know how I feel about that. For a while now, quite a few people have been trying to hammer home the fact that this isn't the 90's anymore, and people's expectations are unrealistic, but this eclipses that advice.

There are producers out there, regular working producers, who pay their writers $1,500 for feature assignments, and that's not unusual. That's less than 0.05% of these big sales. We should absolutely celebrate these lottery winners. They deserve applause for their efforts. However, celebrating the bigger system that creates this disparity? I don't know. Then there's the issue of access on top of it all. We're supposed to cheer at the fact an unknown can walk in with a first scripts, while the rest of us are treated like pariahs and told to wait in line for years?

My hope is that perhaps we're seeing a cultural trend that's moving away from throwing money at casting and instead treasuring good stories. That's certainly been lacking.

The other possibility, and perhaps a much more realistic one, is that there is a monumental bottleneck between the world of spec scripts and studios. That whatever systems being used to filter out good material are failing badly, so badly that someone can walk in off the street and have them fighting over their first attempt.

I think the "systems being used to filter out good material" are in fact failing, and that's because they're based on access. If you have the means to get repped by Untitled, then you're in.

1st of all, a huge congrats to Nato! I haven’t read his script, but I’m sure he approached it the right way.

It’s not just about how good the script is, but also how well it aligns with the producer's vision and whether the movie has strong market potential.

I’m really curious about how he managed to pull this off and would love to hear more about his process.

A big congrats again, this actually gives me more hope and motivation to keep pushing forward!

And Anthony, I hope this inspires you to write even more. After all, we’re all just looking for that one 'yes!'

The analyst at Script Shadow is speculating that this script, "Alignment", may have been produced by AI based on the movie Margin Call. He notes that the characters are especially weak which is a signature deficiency for AI scripts. Is that the new secret to success? Get ChatGPT to write your script for you?

Richard Buzzell It would make the whole story a wild movie... write a movie with ChatGPT, sell it for millions, and then eventually it all implodes

CJ Walley - I enjoyed the hell out of your commentary here.

I love the idea of getting rich quick!

Getting rich quick sounds nice and will never not sound nice, but longer term planning is needed for a career and hopes of ever selling a script. I have 5 written, a 6th in writing, 3 more in outlines, 10+ more in loglines/blurbs etc, and that's probably less than many other long-term spec writers have.

Richard Buzzell, I wouldn't take anything that comes out of Script Shadow seriously.

I don't take seriously anything anyone in this industry says. With good reason. Script Shadow was somehow able to get access to this script and he's not that impressed with it. So it's not some undeniably brilliant writing. Like other scripts, it's possible to find fault with it. It would be an interesting experiment to change the title and the author's name and enter it in a bunch of screenplay contests to see how it would do.

It doesn't matter what some troll on Script Shadow thinks. It doesn't matter what some competition readers think. All that matters is what the person buying it thinks.

This happens all the time; people read what's won Nicholl or something off the top of the Black List and they lose their minds because it doesn't fit with what they believe is objectively good. If there was an objectively good, and these people knew what it was, they'd be selling scripts, working on assignments, and producing movies for millions - but they're not. They're sitting on Twitter with nothing better to do than read other people's work and throw shade at those outperforming them.

The rename a script and throw it back into the system experiment has supposedly been done before however. Some people claimed they did it with the Black List and saw legendary movie scripts get low scores. It happens. Stuff fails to align all the time. I have a whole section of my book dedicated to critics who hated popular movies when they came out.

There is no real objective good, and those who keep trying to make it the case just don't want to accept this is an art form and that they need to think and act like artists.

I'm not surprised accusations like AI are being thrown around. It generates clicks. They'll be plenty of people getting what they can off the back of this news.

Alrighty then. Let's start by getting the writer's name correct. It's Natan Dotan. Here is his IMDb page. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6220177/

Natan has one credit for a short that came out thirteen years ago, and with little information available, this writer could've been kicking around the industry for a while. In other words, he may have seemingly appeared from nowhere, but I'll bet he's not an overnight success. Furthermore, I wouldn't trust Deadline, Hollywood Reporter, or anyone else to get the facts straight. There can be much hoopla in the industry that fizzles like a sparkler (Read the IMDb story about Barbara Streisand directing the Blacklist favorite Catherine The Great) in 2015. https://d1dlq8f5fkueth.cloudfront.net/annual-lists/2014.pdf

An aspiring screenwriter can draw warm and fuzzy inspiration from this story. I'm inspired by many things that motivate me, but very few from reading stories like this. I've pitched screenplays for a dozen years, and this Cinderella story can potentially become a Maltese Falcon for the foreseeable future; you know The stuff the dreams are made of. There are few success stories like this for a reason. According to Go Into The Story, the official blog of the Blacklist, There were eleven spec scripts sold in 2023. However, the WGA and SAG strikes affected much of last year. Personally, my action was slow, so I wrote four screenplays. According to Scott Meyers, sixteen specs were sold in 2022. Those numbers don't include spec sales to indie filmmakers.

THE ANALOGY

As legend has it, a Hollywood agent discovered Lana Turner while sitting at the soda counter at Schwab's Drugstore on Sunset Boulevard. It was a soda fountain, but it was at a joint down the road called The Top Hat. So, imagine the legions of unknown actors hanging out at Schwab's perusing movie mags for years, and it wasn't even the right location. So, Phillip, The Real Deal, what's your point? Well, I'm glad I asked that rhetorical question. You need talent, hustle, inertia, and a thick skin to sell screenplays, particularly big-budget ones. As previously stated in this thread, sometimes it all boils down to luck, timing, or both.

Earlier this year, I watched a YouTube interview with an established, working screenwriter who said it took him ten years to make a feature film. That resonated with me because it took me the same. To paraphrase Patrick Henry, I know not what others may do, but as for me, I plan to make more indie films with budgets of a million dollars or less. That includes working on another low budget film scheduled to shoot next year. I've built a relationship with the production company that shot my first feature. This relationship began nearly four years ago.

Someone on this platform might be the next big sensation, but based on my empirical knowledge, prepare and commit to the long haul; otherwise, aspiring scribes may be in for a hefty dose of frustration and disappointment.

Excellent post and summary, Uncle Phil. We need more of this.

I've seen a lot of people building their own narratives around what's happened. Narratives that just so happen to support their outlook and position. I often fall victim of doing the same.

I've read so many books about so many careers and so many movies, and it's amazing how often the real stories behind them are at complete odds with what people speculate happened. Nothing is overnight. Nothing is easy. Nothing is without uncertainty.

Indeed, if the likes of Deadline or Hollywood Reporter said there was no rain today, I'd make sure to pack an umbrella. Same goes for certain other outlets, platforms, and individuals that have a dog in the fight or just need to feel relevant.

It took me seven years to get my first assignment. Four features in now, and just about to enter year fourteen. I work within a scene that the community/industry mostly seems to consider irrelevant at best and second-rate at worst. It feels more and more like working the trenches is seen as failure than a route to success.

CJ Walley: I'm proud to know you and keep working those trenches while others dream of reaching an imaginary brass ring.

Gotta love writers who work secretly, keep contacts & deals close to the vest, and dont give a fuxk about formatting do's & don't's. They just tell their stories their way.

Dan M: Great writing trumps a lot of rules. I'd love to reaad Dotan's screenplay.

Guess which part writers are going to keep circulating.

1) You can walk into Hollywood with a first draft and make millions.

2) Most rules people tout are actually BS.

Huh. I wonder.

When it comes to art, there are no rules. If you are a good at what you do, people will take notice. The ones who constantly criticize and pick you apart are the ones who are jealous or ego-driven.

This pro writer's take on the how & why.

https://x.com/jestew3/status/1864735914062184912?s=46&t=QE6_iR24yNUu6Vbg...

1) The right place and time have a lot to do with getting attention, IMO, but 2) it's the quality of storytelling that will either hook or hang the jury. The perfect storm is the bidding war, which brings us back to 2)... great storytelling.

No. What it means is that all it takes is one script to break in. That script may be your first, third or twentieth, which is why it's so important to just keep writing. You just never know which script is gonna be the one.

PLUS. Here's a true story about a screenwriter. I watched his interview several years ago so please forgive me but I can't remember who the writer was. He was giving a talk and was asked about his breakthrough. For him it was his 11th script that finally got him a meeting and a sale. He didn't have an agent either at that stage, but based on the sale he was able to get an agent who then took his other 10 scripts to market. He sold 8 scripts in the space of 5 weeks..

I read the script. It feels a lot like MARGIN CALL but in an AI office instead of financial. It was very quickly paced and smartly told a large scope story in a very contained way -- global treats in an office. I can definitely see it being much wanted while not being everyone's cup of tea.

So there we have it - CRAFT > HUSTLE > LUCK

Who knew!?!

I'm still fascinated by the economics here and it seems some others are.

Nathan Doran??? How many different ways are there to butcher this guy's name, which is Natan Dotan.

The cynicism from some on this site always amuses

Time, place and connection. The writer for Dead Poets Society was told he could not write, and his script would never sell.... he won the Oscar for best screenplay with that same script. Another example was the writer for John Wick, Derek Kolstad. Just imagine any writer with this logline: "A retired assassin who returns to his old ways after a group of Russian gangsters steal his car and kill a puppy which was given to him by his late wife." Well... this is John Wick script that became a 1 billion dollar franchise.

Ramus Labiapari well said.

Everyone has an opinion, but it doesn't mean it means anything.

Guy caught lightning in a bottle. Good for him. From what I've heard, AI is pretty played out in the marketplace right now with a deluge of hotfoot AI scripts terrorizing slush piles across the industry, but that company Fifth Season has been behind some charming and heart-driven movies (Flora and Son, The Lost Daughter, 80 for Brady) so for them to splurge on this one feels like it must have a very strong emotional core. Reading tea leaves here so forgive the arm chair analysis, but the writer apparently had an ad background too, so they clearly know how to tug at the heart strings, and it could just be a case of a guy who's very well practiced at pitching (from his ad bg) having a very passionate (character-driven) story and a half-decent script (that producers could work with at the very least) to back it up.

This script is an interesting case with respect to the value of the Blacklist script hosting service. The script sold because it was repped by Untitled. It did not sell as a result of appearing on the Black List a few weeks after the sale. But the script did make the list and reportedly the writer didn't have a rep until shortly before the script sold in November. So how did the industry become aware of the script if it wasn't repped for most of the year? Was that industry awareness due to the script being hosted on the Blacklist site?

Richard Buzzell you're confusing the Black List website with the annual Black List best unproduced specs voted by reps & managers & whoever has skin in the game. Both the website & list were started by same person.

Dan M - I'm clear on the difference between the site and the list even though FL makes every effort to conflate the two. My question remains: how did "Alignment" make the list if it wasn't repped until shortly before it was sold?

Richard Buzzell thats what reps do. They hustle for clients. Supposedly, spec deal was done in early November. Annual Black List comes out before Xmas. So, 4 weeks for Dotan's reps to call BL contacts for votes.