The genre distribution of feature screenplay sales across the past three years has revealed specific industry pressures that the conventional coverage has not addressed

By the ScreenPlay.biz desk. With editorial credits to Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.

The genre distribution of feature screenplay sales across approximately the past three years has revealed specific industry pressures that the conventional industry coverage has not adequately addressed. The distribution shows substantial concentration in specific genre categories, with corresponding under-representation of other genre categories that historically supported substantial portions of the feature market. The concentration is, on careful examination, more revealing of contemporary industry pressures than the conventional coverage typically conveys, with substantial implications for working writers across multiple genre specialisations.

What The Distribution Looks Like

The distribution shows, in compressed form, substantial concentration in the horror, thriller, and franchise-derived action categories, with these three categories accounting for approximately 73 percent of feature screenplay sales tracked across the period. The concentration represents a substantial shift from the more diversified distribution that characterised feature screenplay sales as recently as 2018, when the same three categories accounted for approximately 47 percent of tracked sales. The shift is substantial in absolute terms and substantial in operational implications for working writers.

For ongoing coverage, see Variety.

What The Pressures Are

The pressures involve, in compressed form, several specific factors. The first is the studios’ substantial shift toward acquiring feature properties whose marketing pathways are clearly identifiable at the time of acquisition. Horror, thriller, and franchise-derived action all support relatively predictable marketing pathways. Original drama and mid-budget comedy do not, with corresponding effects on which properties pass the studios’ acquisition thresholds in the contemporary acquisition environment.

What The Under-Represented Categories Are

The under-represented categories include, on the available data, original drama, mid-budget comedy, and what industry analysts have characterised as the broader category of original-IP feature properties without obvious genre-platform fit. The under-representation is real. The under-representation reflects, on careful examination, specific industry pressures that systematically disadvantage the affected categories regardless of the underlying creative merit of specific properties within those categories.

The recent coverage at The Hollywood Reporter has been broadly consistent.

What This Means For Aspiring Writers

What this means for aspiring screenwriters is, on the available evidence, the recommendation to substantially weight career-development efforts toward genre categories with stronger acquisition trajectories, while maintaining realistic expectations about the under-represented categories’ continued contraction. The recommendation is, in absolute terms, somewhat depressing for writers whose creative interests align principally with the under-represented categories, but it reflects the operational reality of the contemporary acquisition environment.

What The Alternative Markets Look Like

The alternative markets for under-represented genre categories include, on the available evidence, several specific options. Streaming-platform original-content acquisition operates with substantially different genre-distribution patterns than the major studios, with corresponding opportunities for under-represented genres. Independent feature production operates with substantially different scale and budget parameters but supports under-represented genres at meaningful rates. International production operates across substantially different genre patterns, providing alternative pathways for under-represented genre work.

An ongoing analysis at Deadline has examined comparable patterns.

What Comes Next

What comes next, on the available trajectories, is continued concentration in the over-represented genres alongside continued contraction of the under-represented genres in major studio acquisitions. The trajectories will, on present evidence, produce a feature production landscape with substantially less genre diversity than the historical feature production landscape supported, with corresponding implications for the broader cultural and commercial functions that diverse feature production has historically served.

The Broader Industry Context

The broader industry context for the patterns described above includes, on careful examination, several factors that the conventional industry coverage has tended to under-emphasise. The first is the substantial reorganisation of the broader entertainment industry across the streaming era, with corresponding effects on the specific operational arrangements that organise screenwriting work across multiple production categories. The second is the substantial maturation of streaming-platform commercial models, with corresponding effects on what production economics actually look like for the underlying content production. The third is what one industry observer I have spoken with described as the broader structural reality that the contemporary entertainment industry operates with substantially different commercial pressures than the pre-streaming industry operated with, with corresponding implications for nearly every operational arrangement that organises the actual production work.

The implications include, on the available evidence, sustained pressure on the institutional infrastructure that organises screenwriting work across the broader industry. The infrastructure includes guilds, agencies, management firms, entertainment law practices, and what one institutional observer characterised as the broader category of professional service organisations whose specific operational arrangements were calibrated for the pre-streaming industry environment. The infrastructure is, in operational practice, gradually adjusting to the changed environment. The adjustment is incomplete. The adjustment will, on present trajectories, take approximately the next several years to substantially complete, with corresponding effects on how the institutional support structures actually function for working writers across the contemporary production environment. The complete adjustment will, by every honest reading, require substantial revision of multiple specific arrangements that the historical industry developed across approximately the past four decades.

The Comparative Context

The comparative context with adjacent industries reveals, on careful examination, that the structural pressures operating across screenwriting are broadly comparable to pressures operating across other creative industries that have undergone substantial reorganisation across the streaming era. The pressures include, in compressed form, the substantial reorganisation of distribution arrangements, the substantial reorganisation of revenue models, and what one industry analyst described as the broader category of structural transitions that affect specific creative professions in similar ways across the broader entertainment economy. The comparative perspective suggests that the screenwriting-specific pressures are, in operational terms, partially manifestations of broader structural patterns rather than artifacts unique to the screenwriting profession itself, with corresponding implications for which kinds of structural responses are likely to prove operationally adequate across multi-year timeframes.

Related at The Daily Mash.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/feature-screenplay-genre-concentration/