From @treehousedaddy:

Thanks for tracking spec sale figures. What is the main driver for that rise in sales, do you think?

The question made me burrow into the deep, dark recesses of my brain cells to recall that I had posted some reflections on this very topic back in November 2011. Here is that post:

The other day I posted this, noting the sale of the spec script “Dreamt,” by my calculations the 92nd spec acquisition in 2011. That is 88% ahead of what spec sales were last year at this time. In comments, Dave asked this:

I love the volume of specs selling this year. Why do you think so many more specs are selling this year compared to the last 2 to 3 years?

I dashed off an off-the-top-of-my-head response. Dave’s reply:

Scott, you are a gentleman, soldier and scholar. This is really interesting analysis. You should just paste this reply into a new blog post.

I reviewed what I wrote and Dave’s right: It does deserve its own post. Not saying my analysis is 100% on target, but there are some good points. So here is my quick take on why the spec script market is hot right now:

Dave, there are many contributing factors. In my humble opinion, here are a few of them:

* As recently as 2 years ago, the studios collectively seemed to try a new approach to movie production: see how few films they could make while still maximizing their profit. The costs of production and marketing have skyrocketed over the last decade, so where in the past studios may have produced 25+ movies per year, some of them scaled back to releasing as few as 15, even less. This year, they hit the bottom with January, as I recall, only having 9 movies by the majors released. It was also the worst month at the B.O. for many years. So lesson learned, they decided to make more movies. And that has resulted in more spec purchases.

* The spec acquisition to production percentage is insanely low, something on the order of 10–20% depending upon the studio and slate. We may assume that drives studio execs crazy. So after the WGA strike of 07–08, when studios had stockpiled scripts, instead of buying like normal, some of them decided to produce what they had on hand. The problem was that while trying to get those numbers up to say 30 or 40%, many of those additional projects they greenlit just weren’t that good. It may just be that the low purchase-to-production percentage is a fact of development life. Or at least that seems to be what the studios are ‘saying’ — in part — by their heavy acquisition pattern this year.

* The Warner Bros. factor: While other studios stood pretty much on the spec sideline the in 09 and 10, not so Warner Bros. They consistently topped the ranks of buyers every year. And this they have almost doubled the spec script purchases of recent years. Safe to say that put pressure on other studios who have all pretty much jumped into the spec market actively this year.

* Why did Warner Bros. leap into spec script purchases this year? One factor is Harry Potter riding off into the cinematic sunset and the studio is actively seeking new franchises to replace HP.

* I’ve heard from some folks that the scripts are just better this year.

* Probably the most obvious thing is the studios have more money this year. It’s not only spec scripts that are up, but other types of projects, too. Even studio-producer deals have gone up slightly this year after a decade long slide in numbers.

* Finally Hollywood seems to believe that audiences are wanting thrillers so there has been a surge in those type of scripts selling this year. I won’t have the final numbers until year-end, but my guess is that genre will be double compared to last year in terms of spec scripts sold.

There are other reasons, no doubt — perhaps Hollywood has discovered the optimum balance of Ambien and Scotch, so everyone is in a better mood! But those are a few possible contributing factors.

Bottom line: It’s the BEST TIME IN YEARS to be writing spec scripts.

How about you? What do you are some contributing factors to why the spec script market is so hot right now?

UPDATE: The question arose in comments: What about 2012? Will the spec market continue to be hot? First let’s look at some numbers. Per my count, here are spec script sales from 2008 until now:

2008: 87

2009: 68

2010: 55

2011 (through 11/11): 93

Last year in December, I made a prediction that I thought sales would go up this year, but I believe the number I guessed was mid-60s. So I was off pretty significantly. However I probably deserve a small bit of credit looking at the trendline from 2008–2010, then guessing it would reverse itself.

I want to see where this year ends before locking down my prediction, but one thing I feel confident in saying: I doubt we’ll see a return to the mid-50s anytime soon.