[
EXCLUSIVE: While high-profile packages have been flourishing following the WGA and SAG AFTRA strikes, the spec market also looks to still have some pop to it as sources tell Deadline, Netflix has landed the female-driven genre thriller Apex from scribe Jeremy Robbins. Ian Bryce and Chernin Entertainment will produce.
Netflix had no comment.
The script is described as Free Solo meets Silence of the Lambs and follows a rock climber who finds herself being hunted in the wild. The sale comes at an interesting time in a post-strike where studios see a need for new original stories to fill the their development slate and the spec and packaging market have reaped the rewards from this new strategy. Prior to the WGA strike in May, the market was not as robust as reps cautioned their clients at how hard it is to sell a script with talent attached let alone a spec on its own but in recent months that outlook as changed and this sale is an example in that change of thought.
Robbins most recently staffed as a producer on The Spiderwick Chronicles for Apple, Paramount TV, and director Barry Sonnenfeld. Before that, he wrote for two seasons of The Purge for Blumhouse, UCP and USA, and was on set in New Orleans to handle all the production rewrites for season one. He recently completed a page-one rewrite for New Regency on their feature Take Back The Night, which is out to directors now. He’s also currently developing a TV series with James DeMonaco, as well as a project with Adam McKay and Hyperobject Industries.
He is repped by Grandview, UTA and attorney Michael Schenkman.
