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Movie studio turning long-rejected Hollywood scripts into novels, movies

Movie studio turning long-rejected Hollywood scripts into novels, movies

Do you ever wonder where all those rejected Hollywood scripts go to die? Is there some sort of paper hell, filled with shredders and hole punchers? Or, is there some crater out in the desert of New Mexico, much like the one allegedly filled with millions of unsold copies of Atari’s mega-flop “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial,” chock-full of scripts every bit as bad as “Gigli,” “Battlefield Earth” and “The Room.”

But one movie studio is ignoring the appraisals of other companies and is taking the old adage “one man’s trash, is another man’s treasure” to heart.

California-based Adaptive Studios employs the unusual business model of reimaging previously abandoned intellectual property from other studios, production companies and agencies. 

“We’re basically rummaging through studio trash for stuff that’s been discarded,” Perrin Chiles, founding partner and chief executive of the company, told the New York Times.

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Hollywood movie studios are known for dishing out cash for a number of scripts, only to have many of them collect dust for years.

And that’s where Adaptive Studios comes in.

The company, which was founded in 2012, sifts through these abandoned works and turns the best ones into novels, which are then converted into movies or TV shows.

“We want the stuff where you have lost all hope,” said Chiles.

“We will take the crumbs off anyone’s table.”

In total, Adaptive has dusted off 50 scripts, including 25 from Miramax, and has released dozens of books through its publishing arm, with plans to issue another 18 over the next year and a half. Eight of the books have been earmarked for film and television adaptions.  It also has a partnership with Barnes & Noble, giving the bookstore exclusive rights to sell their properties in their 640 locations for the first six months.

The studio is also producing some projects on its own, such as “Bleeding Earth,” which it describes as a “Stephen King-meets-Kafta” novel, that is being turned into a low-budget horror movie. 

Meanwhile, other projects have been scooped up by producers from elsewhere, including an adaptation of a young-adult novel “Air,” which musician John Legend has agreed to produce.

Adaptive Studios has also taken on the role of an industry vulture, resuscitating left-for-dead TV properties, such as Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's "Project Greenlight” for HBO.

The studio’s executive told the New York Times that this approach helps them avoid the wrestling matches between bigger studios over scripts from the most sought-after writers.

But Adaptive Studio’s biggest test is likely coming with the release of its film “Coin Heist,” which was made for less than US$5 million, and is now in postproduction.

The film follows a group of students-turned-criminals from a prestigious Philadelphia prep school who discover a security flaw that is too tempting to pass up after a class trip to the U.S. Mint.

The project dates back almost two decades to screenwriter William Osborne, who wrote a script called “The Hole With the Mint,” about a British teacher who robs the Royal Mint with the help of some former students.

Osborne sold the idea as an action comedy and put together three drafts, only to watch the script be placed in a studio vault and never see the light of day for 15 years.

But in 2013, it was given a second life, as part of Adaptive Studios deal with Miramax. 

The studio's executives then changed the setting and turned it into a blueprint, and hunted for new authors to reimagine the script as a novel.

The gig eventually went to Elisa Ludwig, and Emily Hagins signed on as a screenwriter who adapted the book into a movie.

 And after all these years, Osborne is happy to see his script get a second chance.

“It was never going to go anywhere, and I thought, how great that it gets another life,” Osborne told the New York Times.

“So many of one’s scripts just sit on the bottom shelf. It’s a colossal waste.”