Screenwriting

Warner Bros. acquires supernatural thriller spec script “The Waiting” from first time screenwriters Mark Bianculli and Jeff Richard. From Deadline : Described as Rear Window meets Paranormal Activity , mysterious events occur when two high school filmmakers decide to create the illusion of a haunting on an unsuspecting neighbor. Preemptive purchase by Warners. Both writers worked their way up the assistant ranks: Bianculli is currently a writer’s assistant on CBS’s Unforgettable...Read Full Story

Warner Bros. has tapped Chewie scribes Van Robichaux and Evan Susser to rewrite its bigscreen version of TV toon The Jetsons . Zak Penn ( X-Men: The Last Stand ) rewriting the sequel to Karate Kid remake. Steven Knight ( Dirty Pretty Things ) hired by DreamWorks to write the remake of Rebecca . Commencement of principal photography on Red Machine written by J.R. Reher. SkyRock Venture buys thriller spec “Picture Book” from writer Benjamin Magid, his 2nd spec sale this year. Walt...Read Full Story

SkyRock Venture acquires thriller spec script “Picture Book” from writer Benjamin Magid. From Variety : Picture Book” centers on the mysterious happenings in the mansion of a famous children’s author. The story is reminiscent of 2001′s “The Others,” with a supernatural twist. —- Energy is producing found-footage project “Thirteen,” which Universal bought pre-emptively last month and set up with U-based Strike Entertainment. WME and Energy also teamed last month’s spec sale of scribe...Read Full Story

The Walt Disney Company acquires drama spec script “Saving Mr. Banks” from writer Kelly Marcel. From Deadline : The Walt Disney Company is near a deal to acquire Saving Mr. Banks, the Kelly Marcel-scripted saga of how Walt Disney persuaded Australian author P.L. Travers to sell him the rights to make a film out of Mary Poppins. That courtship took 14 years. Disney seems a natural place for the script, considering the studio owns many rights from making the 1964 classic film that starred...Read Full Story

Hammer [ Woman In Black ] acquires 2011 Black List spec script thriller “Gaslight” from writer Ian Fried. From THR : The screenplay, which landed on Hollywood’s Black List of the best unproduced scripts in 2011, is described as in the vein of From Hell , the Alan Moore Victorian-age Jack the Ripper tale, and The Silence of the Lambs , which famously introduced serial killer Hannibal Lecter to the world. In Gaslight , Jack the Ripper, secretly imprisoned in a London insane asylum, is...Read Full Story