Recomendations for Managers Who Specialize in Comedy

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  • Recomendations for Managers Who Specialize in Comedy

    Hello everyone,

    I'm new to the forums and hoping that someone will be able to point me in the right direction regarding my inquiry.

    I have been trying to query out a high concept comedy/sci-fi script for the last several months. Last month, the logline and pitch for this screenplay came in 4th place in a contest run by a senior story editor over at WME, so I truly feel that I have something special here.

    The thing is, I've gotten a lot of responses that are a variation on "Strong project, just not a good fit for us." With that in mind, does anyone have some info on managers that are specifically looking for comedies or are comedy friendly?

    For what it's worth, my debut feature was distributed and released in 2019, as was my debut stand-up comedy album, so I'm not a complete newbie here by any stretch.

    Thank you in advance for any information you might have.
    Last edited by Done Deal Pro; 01-15-2021, 08:25 AM. Reason: Added tags

  • #2
    Bono I saw that you have some expertise in this area - any thoughts?

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    • #3
      If a guy named Scott Leddy offers to rep you or anyone PMs you offering to hook you up with him, run as fast as you can in other direction.

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      • #4
        KitesAreFun I don't know the name, but I appreciate you responding. What happened to make you say that?

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        • #5
          Originally posted by entking View Post
          KitesAreFun I don't know the name, but I appreciate you responding. What happened to make you say that?
          Do a search on this forum and you'll find the relevant thread. That guy caused a lot of grief for many people, myself included.

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          • #6
            KitesAreFun thank you for letting me know that, it's much appreciated.

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            • #7
              My first thought is I should ask you for advice if you already have a feature film under your belt. Was it something you self financed? You think that would be a great way into meeting managers.

              My second thought is comedy/sci-fi doesn't bring many movies to mind. I think of Galaxy Quest. So is yours like Star Man with comedy -- or can you pitch it like an action/comedy which I think would help you get more reads.

              The issue is everyone loves comedy, but they are harder to sell and get made these days. So my guess is that comedy is a genre 99% of reps work with -- it's just harder to sell than a horror or action movie in general. So target everyone. I can list some places that do more comedy -- but irony is they already have like 100 comedy writers and you want to be the ONLY comedy writer a rep has if you can. Better to be with a guy or gal who does mostly horror movies and loves comedy and you can be their comedy guy. Right now I'm with a manager and I think I may be the only comedy person he has. And he loves comedy. He's just found more writers that he wanted to sign based off thrillers.

              You can PM if you want. I'd be interested to hear the logline. It's great you did well in the contest and it's run by a guy that is mentioned on these boards a lot. I never dealt with him myself, but it's nice that he liked it for sure.

              Bottom line is you are going to get 99 "no thank yous" in some way or silence and maybe 1 yes if you reach out to 100 reps. And that's the game.

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              • #8
                Hey Bono , thanks for getting back to me on this. I'd love to talk with you further about the logline and the script overall, but when I try to PM you, it says you're not accepting PM's right now. If you're able to change your settings or give me a workaround, would be happy to talk with you further about this in a message.

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                • #9
                  Generally speaking, "strong project, but not a good fit for us" or equivalent is just a polite way of passing. As Bono said, almost every manager works with at least some comedy-- though some places (3Arts, Brillstein, etc.) see it as more of a focus than do others.

                  One other thing: if at all possible, I'd try to avoid approaching managers via blind queries. I don't know anyone IRL who found decent reps that way (though I believe some people on these boards have had positive experiences that began with queries!).

                  If you've made a movie and released a standup album, you probably have some connections to the industry, yeah? If I were you, I'd focus on exploiting those, trying to get personal intros to reps from shared connections.

                  In any case, good luck!

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                  • #10
                    AnyOtherName thanks for writing back - despite the work I've already put out at this point, most of my connections are on the creative or crew side, not in management - I only know two repped writers personally. One of them has a manager that's not taking on new clients (and hasn't gotten her any work anyway), and the other writer's rep actually passed on this script last year.

                    I'm not a huge fan of blind queries myself, but being that I don't live in NY or LA, it seems to be the only option available to me, outside of contests, to get my work read.

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                    • #11
                      Blind queries have never had a great track record, but they do sometimes work. A million years ago, when I broke in, I think I had a 2% response rate - but got an agent at CAA off a query letter.

                      I think the best way to find reps that might be into your material is to find out who represents writers whose work you like and write to those managers/agents. "I'm a fan of XXX, who you represent, and would love to send you my new spec script."

                      imdb pro does a pretty good job of keeping up with reps. So does the WGA site.

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                      • #12
                        JeffLowell thanks for that - do you know if the WGA site has that info open to non-members? I'm not a member at this time, so I don't know if that information is publicly available to me or not.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by entking View Post
                          JeffLowell thanks for that - do you know if the WGA site has that info open to non-members? I'm not a member at this time, so I don't know if that information is publicly available to me or not.
                          Anyone can use the WGA search for finding out who reps a writer. It's open and you don't have to be a member of the guild. (Though reps aren't always listed.)

                          And though I've mentioned this before -- yes, I'm shilling -- you can run reports via our main site to see who has represented comedy feature scripts and/or TV scripts, for example, in the last year, two years, or more. I normally would suggest not going back more than about two or three years to keep it all fresh & current.

                          But you can see which agents, managers and even entertainment lawyers repped the writer(s) on their deal and that can be a solid place to start in terms of generating a list of who to write.
                          Will
                          Done Deal Pro
                          www.donedealpro.com

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                          • #14
                            Done Deal Pro no shame in shilling, and thank you for that extra information,

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                            • #15
                              The donedeal sales archives are invaluable. I don't start a spec without combing through them to make sure no one else has sold something similar, and see what else in the general area sold.

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