This year has been especially tough for emerging as well as established screenwriters. TV in particular has taken a massive hit as the bottom has finally fallen out of streaming, with 40% fewer writers working in TV than at this time last year. Yikes. Theatrical features have suffered as well, with many “sure thing” movies…
Well, first of all, it sucks! Really, it does. We know. We’ve been there. Many times. We’re all writers, too. The reason we wanted to bring up this not-very-fun subject is because we got quite a few disappointed and/or angry emails after our 5/31 deadline from writers who had hoped for, and/or felt they deserved,…
Students of the biz know that superhero-anything right now is in a bad place. Unless the project is based on well-known source material, they’re super tough to get read right now. They’re right down there with WWII movies and period dramas in terms of not-so-much marketability. And so it was that none of the CI…
The Get Repped Now deadline is Saturday, May 31st. Heads-up: there will be one (and only one) extension. The FINAL deadline is June 15th. So all of you scrambling to get your scripts done by May 31st, breathe easy, you actually have an extra two weeks. There will be NO price increase for the extension, and…
A couple of weeks ago, we wrote a column about all of the people who take a bite out of your awesome spec sale. Your agent takes 10% so does your manager; the lawyer charges a million dollars/hour or takes 5%, depending on how established you are and how big the deal is, and so…
The spec market is finally showing signs of life, after a long period where many pro writers had to resort to bagging groceries to keep the rent paid. If your script is a tight consider, you will hopefully get reads and doors will open. But wait — there’s one other important part of this, and…
Every screenwriter dreams of this day: a bright and sunny day in Los Angeles (because what else is it going to be?) and the phone rings. It’s your manager. The magic words sing in your ears: “We’ve made the sale!” You’re first mid-six-figure spec sale! Wow! You’re wealthy. Time to buy that condo and sip…
I read something just the other day that gave me pause. In fact, it triggered this article. The writer wrote something like this: INT. PETE’S CAR – DAY Pete eats a sandwich while he makes a phone call. Okay, so what’s wrong with that? It paints a picture. We can see the…
DOOM and GLOOM. That’s what 2025 has been for the movie and TV biz so far. US box office has been nothing short of catastrophic, with the only ray of light coming from (egad) The Minecraft Movie. TV writing jobs are down a whopping 42% from last year. Panicky reps have been wondering how to…
We are almost four weeks into Get Repped Now and, as expected, we’ve seen a lot of pilots with amazing ideas so far. Alas, many of them are afflicted with a dread case of pilotitis — an insidious malady affecting four out of five of the the 1-hr pilots we see. This is our not-so-affectionate…