Lessons from Get Repped Now 2025

Let’s Talk About Marketability

Whenever we drop a video about Marketability (the latest one is right here,) a few people take us to task for reinforcing Hollywood’s appallingly limited tastes or for ignoring the successes of films and shows that may contradict our advice. Fair enough.

So while it’s early days still, and only a few managers have read the scripts so far, let’s look at what the genres they were excited to read, the ones they took a flyer on, and the ones they declined to read at all.

But first, let’s address those points I just brought up.

1) We’re reinforcing Hollywood’s limited tastes.

Well, not really. We’re simply passing along what we see in terms of what the industry tends to spark to. Marketability has no bearing on whether a script gets a “consider” or not in Get Repped Now. Every year we always have a mix of genres that make the consider list, from those that might be deemed highly commercial to, well, the opposite. We simply advise as to what the managers tell us and what we observe as students of the biz.

2) Ignoring the successes of films and shows that may contradict our advice.

Two points here. Firstly, the rules are different for successful creators with a track record than for an emerging writer with no credits. If Shonda Rhimes for some reason wants to do a show about, say, the Peloponnesian War, just to pick something expensive, obscure, and period, we’re pretty sure that show would get greenlit. And thank heavens, because that’s the only way we’re going to get that sort of epic, big-budget, out-of-the-box entertainment. If you or I were to try to do it? Ha!

Secondly, there’s always a way forward, and a dedicated, passionate producer or creator can make things happen by sheer force of will. A few of these movies break through every year. And again, thank heavens. Maybe it took five or eight years to raise the money. Maybe the creator mortgaged their house to get it done. Maybe they have a connection to a key piece of talent who worked for scale. One way or another, they find a way. But CI’s opinions about marketability mainly come from trying to sell a feature or pilot as a spec, or, accordingly, the chances of interesting a rep – absent any of those special circumstances.

Oh, and also, they come from ten years of interviewing agents and managers and writing the Agent’s Hot Sheet column for Creative Screenwriting magazine.

Here’s a breakdown of this year’s Get Repped Now considers by genre:

FEATURES

• 3 horror
• 1 rom/com
• 1 comedy/thriller
• 1 animation
• 1 period drama
• 1 YA

PILOTS

• 2 contemporary 1-hr dramas
• 2 contemporary half-hour comedies (both are animation or live action)

The most popular genres:

So, astute students of the biz, can you guess which of these were the most popular, just by genre? If you said horror #1, ding ding ding. Genre scripts are always going to be the most popular. Why?

• Horror is an evergreen. They never fall out of favor.
• Multiple places to sell them at various levels, from indie to TV to the studios.
• They can be done for a price. If the average cost of a studio movie is 9 figures, horror can be done for 9 dollars.
• They’re fast reads. Horror scripts tend to clock in around 100 pages or less

Nine of the managers on the panel chose to read two or more of the horrors. (Note that two of the 15 managers on our list have left the biz – another comment on how tough it’s been the past few years – we’re making inquiries to try to replace them.) And as we announced last week, manager Jake Wagner did swoop in and pick up Erik Leifson’s script PROWL and is out to the town with it right now.

So does that mean everyone should be writing horror? Sweet Christmas, no! Write what you are passionate about. Horror writers tend to be all about it. Of course, if you’re, say, a rom/com fan, and you want to do a genre mash-up, bring it! You might create something cool and fresh like WARM BODIES, which was a great genre mash-up.

The least popular genres:

Least desired? This was a bit of a surprise to us, but only two of the managers so far have elected to read the YA script. Now over on the book publishing side, YA is by far the most popular genre. But features, from a spec? Not so much it seems. Our guess is that the biz is mostly interested in YA when it is adapted from a bestselling book. Hopefully one of the managers reading the script will respond positively, but wow.

Now I know some of you were going to answer period drama for least desired, and of course you’re in the zone. With regard to the three horror scripts, the period-set one got five fewer yeas than the others.

And as for the period drama, only three managers elected to read. One who did read and passed commented, “Period drama is tough — so had to really wow me.” Hey, at least he took a look. But this is consistent with what another manager told me about a beautiful period drama which scored a consider a few years back. “Please don’t ask me to read this,” he said. “I just spent two years setting up (another period drama) – ten times the work and a much smaller payday. The last thing I need is to fall in love with another one. Pass. Send me the next ‘Fast’ movie.”

Also not surprising was the paucity of interest in the animated feature. Animated features don’t generally come from specs; they’re developed in-house at the big animation companies. Although there are foreign and indie paths to production, and these scripts can get some play as writing samples. Three managers reading so far.

All of the other genres:

As for the rest? Well, the rom/com’s getting some play. Six people are reading, which is pretty good. Rom/coms have enjoyed a real comeback in the past few years thanks to streaming. And while the holiday rom/com subgenre is beginning to show signs of fatigue, rom/coms in general are beloved, and they were gone long enough for people to really miss them. Good ones will get read.

Thrillers tend to be a safe bet as feature specs, although they are very much execution-dependent and tricky as heck to do well. Comedy feature specs, however, are in a tough spot right now. Everyone was hoping that the NAKED GUN reboot would reinvigorate the genre, but that film underperformed. Could it be that there’s so much comedy online that no one wants to pay to see it as a feature? In any case, it’s not a genre managers really want to roll the dice on right now, sadly. Four people are reading the comedy/thriller.

On the TV side, again, pretty much what we expected. First, let’s be clear on just how tough half-hours spec pilots are. They are almost impossible to sell. Mostly they’re writing samples, but because managers know the chances of them selling are remote, they’re considered of less value than 1-hours. The people who get to create these shows tend to be known quantities who have spent decades coming up through the ranks as writers or comedians.

And so, as expected, we got a handful of bites from the managers who do TV on the 1-hr dramas – five reads each – and fewer on the half-hours (2 or 3 each.)

The takeaways:

So there you have it, folks. Make of it what you will, but I think the takeaway here is: write your passion, but the most marketable version of it. Tanya Klein mentioned AUSTENLAND in the above-referenced video as a fantastic way to showcase that writer’s love of Jane Austen in a fresh and contemporary way. There’s no getting around that period and drama are not in demand at the moment on the feature side. So if that’s your thing, find a reason to make your premise so compelling, fascinating, or relevant that people have to read it.

Keep the faith, keep writing, and go get ‘em.