As promised, below is the introduction to the full 2009 OWA Scorecard I sent out this week along with the overview grids.  If you want a copy of the PDF document, sign up using the form at the top right column of this page.

*****

2009 Open
Writing Assignment Scorecard
by Jason Scoggins
February 10, 2010

So here it is, the full 2009 Open Writing Assignment Scorecard.  Like the 2009 Spec Market Scorecard,
compiling this document over the past month was as useful to me as I hope it is
for you.  Previously, I’d had a
general sense of the number of projects in active development around town, but
seeing how that activity broke down at each company throughout the year was
eye-opening.

In case you didn’t follow the series of seven blog posts that constitutes the
bulk of this report, here’s what you need to know to understand the below.

·      
I took copies of one big talent agency’s OWA grid
from six points throughout 2009 and compared them side-by-side.  I summarized each document, listing every
project at every studio that was added or dropped off the list from grid to
grid, and then totaled up the numbers for each grid and summarized the entire
dataset.

·      
To keep the grids concise and consistent, I didn’t
differentiate between projects that fell off the grid because the assignment
was filled or for some other reason (e.g., the project became inactive, moved
to another studio, etc.), which is why I labeled those projects “Closed” rather
than “Filled.”

I kept the studio names and alphabetical order of the individual companies’
breakdowns below consistent with the blog posts (which stuck to the order of
the agency’s grid), but I made adjustments to both for the purposes of the
below overview grids.  For those of
you who aren’t familiar with the concept of OWAs and OWA Grids in the first
place, I talked about what they are and why they’re important in the first blog
post in the series, which is available here. 

Details on each of the projects listed in the below breakdowns are available to
subscribers of www.itsonthegrid.com.  As always, the site provides a three
day free trial period, so if you’re not already a subscriber, sign up now,
risk-free.

OVERVIEW

As you review the below numbers, keep in mind they are based solely on that one
big agency’s OWA grids.  Obviously,
there are a number of projects that did not appear on those grids for one
reason or another, and therefore the actual number of projects in active
development last year is some percentage higher.  What’s most interesting here (to me, at least) is the scale
of the numbers and the comparison between the companies, as opposed to the raw
numbers themselves. 

The big reason to separate the above six companies from their subsidiaries and the mini-majors is to make it easier to rank the majors by last year’s OWA activity, as well as to see just how big the differences were between them.  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the efficacy of having 85 or more (much more, in the case of Warner Bros. and Universal) projects in active development at a time.  Interestingly, the above rankings generally followed the rankings from the 2009 Spec Market Scorecard:  Universal and Warner Bros. bought the most specs last year (6 each), followed by Columbia and Paramount (5 each), with Disney and Fox bringing up the rear (2 and 3, respectively).

With a couple of notable exceptions, the hallmark of the above group is their efficiency in terms of filling their open writing assignments.  If you remove those 3 outliers, just 10% of these companies’ OWAs were on the grid for the entire year (7 out of 69 projects).  

While it’s tempting to think in “glass half empty” terms (a pretty small group of professional writers got writing assignments in Hollywood last year compared to, say, the active WGA membership as a whole), the above numbers are pretty encouraging when you consider how few films these companies have been producing annually for the past several years.  In my spec market reports last year, I took a number of potshots at the studios for not buying more original material.  I still believe bringing original material and new voices into the system is vitally important to the health of the business as a whole, but now that I’ve seen the above numbers, the subdued pace of 2009’s spec purchases makes more sense.

Perhaps the thing to focus on going forward is the percentage of projects at each company that were on the grid throughout 2009.  Here’s the breakdown, the alphabetical order:  Columbia – 25%; Disney – 40%; Fox – 14%; Paramount – 18%; Universal – 42%; Warner Bros. – 44%.  

Food for thought.

About The Scoggins Reports:
The Scoggins Reports (Jason Scoggins’ Spec Market Roundup, Spec Market Scorecard and now this OWA Scorecard) are terribly unscientific analyses of the feature film development business based on information culled from a variety of public and non-public sources.  These are by no means official statistics, merely a fairly complete summary.  Past editions can be found in the archives of The Business of Show Institute (http://bit.ly/2HRZ67) as well as on Scoggins’ website:  http://www.lifeonthebubble.com.  Past editions of the OWA Scorecards can be found at http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.

Details on each person, project and company in the Reports can also be found at http://www.itsonthegrid.com, a subscription-supported, web-based database of feature film development information recently launched by Scoggins and several other literary managers.  For daily posts of new and updated spec script, OWA and ODA information, check out the IOTG blog here: http://blog.itsonthegrid.com. 

About Scoggins:
Jason Scoggins is a partner at Protocol, a literary management and production company.  He manages writers, directors and producers of film and TV alongside Protocol’s founding partners Brian Inerfeld and John Ufland.  Click 
here to follow him on Twitter.

Believe me, no one is happier at the prospect of my 2009 OWA Scorecard being done than me.  My laptop is restored, the lost documents have been reconstructed, the individual grids are all in one document, the summary grids are done, and now I'm just wrapping up my pithy comments.  The summary grids will be published either this Friday or Monday next week, depending on when this week's Business of Show Institute newsletter goes out.  At that point, you'll be able to print all 8 posts and have have the full Scorecard at your fingertips.

But come on.  We both know that's not the best way to look at the numbers.  What you really want is to have the whole thing in one document, right?  And that's exactly what'll be available starting Wednesday this week.  All you have to do to get your very own copy is sign up via the form at the top of the right column of this page. 

As always, this is a worry-free situation:  We won't sell, share or otherwise distribute your information to anyone outside of IOTG, ever, using the same privacy and other policies we've explicitly put in place over on the subscription site.  From time to time we'll send you a promotional piece about new itsonthegrid-related offers, but that's it, and if you find those irritating or tiresome you can easily unsubscribe from the mailing list.

So if you haven't already, sign up now.  Almost 300 of the cool kids have already done it (seriously, you wouldn't believe the names on the list already).  And you want to be cool, too, don't you?

2009 OWA Scorecard:  Sony Animation through Universal
by Jason Scoggins
February 4, 2010

Here’s the sixth installment of my look back at the studios’ 2009 open writing assignment activity, covering Sony Animation through Universal (and Universal/Illumination Entertainment).  I meant to post this while I was at Sundance, but I lost a bunch of work when my laptop was stolen there last week and I had to reconstruct it this week.  I'll have the final post, covering Walden Media through The Weinstein Co., up later today as well.

The full 2009 OWA Scorecard will be available via PDF starting next week, and the only way to get a copy of it will be to fill out the form at the top of the right-hand column of this blog.  The grids are even easier to read in that format, and the document will include a summary grid with all the top-level numbers and a quickie analysis.  So if you haven't already, sign up now.  And don't worry, we won't sell or rent out your information to anyone, we'll just shoot you a promo email about www.itsonthegrid.com every once in a while.  (That's a fair trade, don't you think?)

I explained how and why I’m doing this exercise in Part 1, but here’s what you need to know in order to understand the below grids:  

·       I’m taking copies of one big talent agency’s OWA Grid from six points throughout 2009 and comparing them side-by-side to see the number of OWAs at each company, as well as which projects were particularly active last year. 

·       To keep the below grids concise and consistent, I’m not differentiating between projects that came off the grid because the assignment was filled or for some other reason (e.g., the project becoming inactive, moving to another studio, etc.), which is why I’ve labeled any project that fell off the grid “Closed” rather than “Filled.”

Part 1 of this series covered CBS Films and Columbia Pictures and is available here.  Part 2 covered Dimension, DreamWorks, Focus and a few others and is available here.  Part 3 covered the Fox labels and is available here.  Part 4 covered Gold Circle through New Regency and is available here.  Part 5 covered Overture through Screen Gems and is available here.
 

SONY PICTURES ANIMATION

About Scoggins:
Jason Scoggins is a partner at Protocol, a literary management and production company.  He manages writers, directors and producers of film and TV alongside Protocol’s founding partners Brian Inerfeld and John Ufland.  Follow him here:  http://twitter.com/itsonthegrid. 

2009 OWA
Scorecard:  Overture through Screen
Gems
by Jason Scoggins
January 19, 2010

Here’s the fifth installment of my look back at the studios’ 2009 open writing
assignment activity, covering Overture through Screen Gems.  I’m powering through the remaining
buyers this week and will post them once or twice daily here at http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.  I’m also pulling all of the scorecards
together in one document, and if you’d like to receive a PDF copy of it,
there’s a sign-up form at the top of the right-hand column.

I explained how and why I’m doing this exercise in Part 1, but here’s what you
need to know in order to understand the below grids: 

·      
I’m taking copies of one big talent agency’s OWA Grid
from six points throughout 2009 and comparing them side-by-side to see the
number of OWAs at each company, as well as which projects were particularly
active last year. 

·      
To keep the below grids concise and consistent, I’m
not differentiating between projects that came off the grid because the assignment
was filled or for some other reason (e.g., the project becoming inactive,
moving to another studio, etc.), which is why I’ve labeled any project that
fell off the grid “Closed” rather than “Filled.”

Part 1 of this series covered CBS Films and Columbia Pictures and is available here.  Part 2 covered Dimension, DreamWorks,
Focus and a few others and is available here.  Part 3 covered the Fox labels and is
available here.  Part 4 covered Gold Circle through New
Regency and is available here.

OVERTURE

Recap:  3 projects on the grid in 2009, 1 of
which closed.

PARAMOUNT

Recap:  85 projects on the grid in 2009, 47 of
which were closed.

Paramount had a staggering number of OWAs in 2009, and most of the activity
happened in the second half of the year after Adam Goodman took over as studio
president in June.  Just 7 of the
38 projects on the grid in April were still open in December, not including two
of April’s projects that went off the grid and came back on later in the year
(Sebastian Knight and Texas Hold ‘Em).

PARTICIPANT

Recap:  9 projects on the grid in 2009, 3 of
which closed, including the one project on the list in April (The Colony).

RELATIVITY

Recap:  4 projects on the grid in 2009, two of
which were closed.

I was surprised by how few OWAs Relativity had in 2009, since I’d thought their
single picture business was broader than the above indicates.  Of course, one explanation could be
that the company stuck with the original writers on their projects.  But that’s ridiculous, right?

SCREEN GEMS

Recap:  9 projects on the grid in 2009, 7 of
which were closed.  All three of
the projects on the grid in April were closed by December.

About The Scoggins Reports:
The Scoggins Reports (Jason Scoggins’ Spec Market Roundup, Spec Market
Scorecard and now this OWA Scorecard) are terribly unscientific analyses of the
feature film development business based on information culled from a variety of
public and non-public sources. These are by no means official statistics,
merely a fairly complete summary. 
Past editions of The Scoggins Reports can be found in the archives of
The Business of Show Institute (http://bit.ly/2HRZ67)
as well as on Scoggins’ website:  http://www.lifeonthebubble.com.  Past editions of the OWA Scorecards can
be found at http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.

Details on each person, project and company in the Reports are also available
at http://www.itsonthegrid.com,
a subscription-supported, web-based database of feature film development
information launched in late 2009 by Scoggins and several other literary
managers.  For daily posts of new
and updated spec script, OWA and ODA information, check out the IOTG blog
here:  http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.

About Scoggins:
Jason Scoggins is a partner at Protocol, a literary management and
production company.  He manages
writers, directors and producers of film and TV alongside Protocol’s founding
partners Brian Inerfeld and John Ufland. 
Follow him here:  http://twitter.com/itsonthegrid.

2009 OWA
Scorecard:  Gold Circle through New
Regency
by Jason Scoggins
January 19, 2010

Here’s the fourth installment of my look back at the studios’ 2009 open writing
assignment activity, covering Gold Circle through New Regency.  I’m powering through the remaining
buyers this week and will post them once or twice daily here at http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.  I’m also pulling all of the scorecards
together in one document, and if you’d like to receive a PDF copy of it,
there’s a sign-up form at the top of the right-hand column.

I explained how and why I’m doing this exercise in Part 1, but here’s what you
need to know in order to understand the below grids: 

·      
I’m taking copies of one big talent agency’s OWA Grid
from six points throughout 2009 and comparing them side-by-side to see the
number of OWAs at each company, as well as which projects were particularly
active last year. 

·      
To keep the below grids concise and consistent, I’m
not differentiating between projects that came off the grid because the assignment
was filled or for some other reason (e.g., the project becoming inactive,
moving to another studio, etc.), which is why I’ve labeled any project that
fell off the grid “Closed” rather than “Filled.”

Part 1 of this series covered CBS Films and Columbia Pictures and is available here.  Part 2 covered Dimension, DreamWorks,
Focus and a few others and is available here.  Part 3 covered the Fox labels and is
available here.

GOLD CIRCLE FILMS

Recap:  7 projects on the grid in 2009, 4 of
which closed.  Four of the six
projects on the grid in April were closed by December.

LIONSGATE

Recap:  16 projects on the grid in 2009, 11 of
which closed.  All 6 from April
were closed by December.

Technically, there were only 14 projects on the grid for Lionsgate in 2009,
since Nurse and God And California went off the grid in the first half of the
year and popped back up in the second half.

 
MANDATE

Recap:  4 projects on the grid in 2009, three
of which closed.  Just Another Love
Story was the one project on the grid in April that didn’t close by December.

MGM

Recap:  6 projects on the grid in 2009, just one
of which closed (no surprise).  War
Games was the project on the grid in April that wasn’t closed by December. 

MIRAMAX

Recap:  5 projects on the grid in 2009, 4 of
which closed.  Indignation was the
project on the grid in April that wasn’t closed by December.

1/19/2010 Update:  I had lunch today with a motion picture
lit agent from one of the big four agencies who told me Disney intends to re-launch
Miramax as a label for projects written and/or directed by the parent studio’s
up-and-coming talent that don’t fit the rest of their brands (Bruckheimer,
Disney, DreamWorks, Marvel, Touchstone). 
This would explain those rumors from last Fall about former Fox Atomic exec
Debbie Liebling leaving Fox to join the Disney label.  (She ended up President of Production at
Universal.)

NEW LINE

Recap:  18 projects on the grid in 2009, 12 of
which closed.  All 10 from April
were closed by December.

NEW REGENCY

Recap:  20 projects on the grid in 2009, 10 of
which closed.  All 7 from April
were closed by December.

About The Scoggins Reports:
The Scoggins Reports (Jason Scoggins’ Spec Market Roundup, Spec Market
Scorecard and now this OWA Scorecard) are terribly unscientific analyses of the
feature film development business based on information culled from a variety of
public and non-public sources. These are by no means official statistics,
merely a fairly complete summary. 
Past editions of The Scoggins Reports can be found in the archives of
The Business of Show Institute (http://bit.ly/2HRZ67)
as well as on Scoggins’ website:  http://www.lifeonthebubble.com.  Past editions of the OWA Scorecards can
be found at http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.

Details on each person, project and company in the Reports are also available
at http://www.itsonthegrid.com,
a subscription-supported, web-based database of feature film development
information launched in late 2009 by Scoggins and several other literary
managers.  For daily posts of new
and updated spec script, OWA and ODA information, check out the IOTG blog
here:  http://blog.itsonthegrid.com.