Seeing what scripts are being bought and sold can not only give you a clue as to what might get made, it can also tell you what studios are looking for, which genres to expect more of, and what trends are coming.  We'll take a look at what's selling every week. So what’s selling now? Let’s see what Variety.com can tell us about that. Two small scripts are giving us one big clue this week.
 

At the beginning of the summer, Rita Wilson signed a deal to write, “Terms of Embarrassment” for Fox 2000. Believe it or not, this was her first script sale. She’s becoming increasingly well known on the production end of the business ever since she spotted Nia Vardalos’ one-woman Broadway show, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”.
 

 As we all know, that show became the film that went on to make independent history with historic profits, and guess who produced it? Rita Wilson. Since then she has executive produced another historic smash, “Mamma Mia” (The number one all time box office take in England.) and this summer’s smaller in scale, but still entertaining, “My Life In Ruins”.

Is it just me, or do we have a Nora Ephron in training here? After all, she has years of experience in the rom-com business, mostly as an actress. So the woman knows what she’s doing and has likely developed excellent sensibilities between all her hits, whether she was acting (Runaway Bride, Sleepless in Seattle) or producing (Connie and Carla).

What does this all mean? Well the sale of this script is only one bread crumb in the trail leading to more women’s films at the theater. Lest we forget the mega-success of the, “Sex and the City” movie last year? Quite frankly, that movie was terrible. But women don’t have much to choose from these days, especially not those that crave traditional romantic comedies.

Traditional is certainly not en vogue anymore at the movies, it's just about as uncool as being original. Studios want sure bets and the numbers say that males under 25 spend the most money at the movies, ere go, more things blowing up, more action movies and more remakes of horror films. However, if studios are smart, they’ll continue to invest in “women’s films”. We're deprived.

I’d really like to see another studio go courting Bonnie Hunt to write and direct something new and surely Nora Ephron will continue her work. This is especially true based off of the initial success of last weekend’s, “Julie and Julia”. (Which I saw, it was a return to form for Ephron and a very relatable film from my female perspective.)

 

I can feel a return to a large number of romantic comedies coming, something like what we saw in the early nineties. But it may still be 6 months to a year away. Surely studios will try to find a way to compete with the, “Sex and the City” sequel. (I felt that, “Confessions of a Shopaholic” was an early attempt to get a piece of that pie, even the plot was almost a response to the call of the unrealistic glamour and spending in SATC, but that’s a column for another day.)
 

So rest assured, the sale of that one script along with the other indications we’re seeing can tell us via deductive reasoning that “chick flicks” will make a big resurgence. (Wouldn’t Sherlock be proud?)
 

But not all romantic comedies are “chick flicks” right? Just yesterday, Variety reported that the Judd Apatow tidal wave will continue rolling through theaters, this time with a comedic vehicle for actor Jonah Hill. While it’s true the project is still unscripted, it was snapped up as a pitch recently. It’s called, “The Best Thing About Pam Rooney”.

Apatow’s movies are like romantic comedies geared more toward men. The plots are still sweet and genuine, men dealing with commitment in the traditional romantic comedy three act structure. The lessons at the end of his films are typically very traditional and romantic, but he makes his films more palatable for men by throwing in a lot of extra…how do I say this without sounding sexist? Oh it’s probably too late for that, more machismo.

There’s more bad language, more drug references, more graphic sex talk. I almost feel like those things make younger men feel more comfortable with the heart of the films, and I can’t say this for sure, but I guess it makes them more realistic for the young American male.

Anyway, the duo set to write the script are producers of Apatow’s recent, “Funny People”, Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien. So this comes on the heels of the continued success of Apatow’s other films, which are almost like a genre in and of themselves, or at the very least a sub-genre.

See? Further evidence that the romantic comedy is back according to script sales, box office sales, and the growing and changing presence of the genre in film today.