David Guggenheim (not to be confused with the documentary makers who won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth) is having a pretty good couple of months. Despite having no industry experience, the former US Weekly editor sold his spec script, Safe House, to Universal in February. Now THR reports that he’s got even more reason to celebrate, as Summit Entertainment has picked up his pitch called Puzzle Palace for a mid-six figure sum.
It seems that Guggenheim has found a theme that works and is sticking to it, as Safe House is about a young housesitter of a CIA-run safe house, who must help a criminal escape to another safe location after the first house is detroyed by villains who want the witness dead. Puzzle Palace meanwhile follows a kid who gets locked in a police station trying to steal evidence and has to escape crooked cops to get out. Not exactly a giant leap from one to the other, is it?
While the market for spec scripts and pitches is still weak, it’s certainly picked up in the last couple of months, and Guggenheim seems to be benefitting from that.