Only 11 Feature Scripts Sold in 2023. So How Do You Build a Career in Hollywood Right Now?

This question sits underneath almost every conversation I have with writers and filmmakers right now — from people who have recently started to those who’ve been grinding at it for years and are quietly wondering if they missed their window.

I always strive to give the most honest baseline answer in any interaction I have with writers — and not the encouraging ‘non-answer’ that often comes with a cheesy Hollywood spin. Honestly it makes me gag thinking about the way agents and managers blow smoke up their client’s derriere yet say the truth when they’re not within earshot. I am not in the business of “making you feel better” (and you didn’t come here for that) because if I do then you’re stuck in the same spot spinning wheels for months, years, a decade. That wouldn’t be fair to you.

The real answer to this question is both useful and hopeful, even with the fear of the question hanging over it.

Yes. There is still a path.

But I’ll be honest with you, it’s not the one you were sold.

In the past four years the business contracted, hard. Read more about that here.

With so many jobs lost, writers who were never out of work are sitting idle. The feature spec market — where selling could launch a career overnight — has nearly vanished. In 1995, Hollywood bought 173 spec scripts. In 2023, it bought eleven. Same town, same studios, thirty years apart.

Those numbers arent typos. And if you’ve been operating on the assumption that writing a great spec and getting it out there and selling it is THE career path then that’s why you’ve been banging your head against a wall.

I am absolutely not persuading you to stop writing feature specs — you must continue writing but I want to illustrate the divide you’re feeling between the so-called path you were sold and the reality you are living.

And its important that you recognise too that when you spec doesn’t land, its not the industry telling you your work isn’t good enough. It’s the industry going through a structural contraction and its about money not talent and certainly not about story.

So what does the real map look like today, right now, in fact?

That’s the part I want to walk you through. Because the path still exists. It’s narrower in some places and wider in others than it’s ever been, and knowing the difference is everything.