Script Coverage: What Development Readers Actually Look For

The insider's guide to what script coverage means, how it is written, and what development executives actually do with reader recommendations

Screenplay.biz. Journalism about the craft and business of screenwriting.

Script coverage -- the written assessment of a screenplay produced by a development reader as the initial filter in the development process -- is the document that determines whether an executive reads the script. The coverage system exists because development executives at studios and streaming platforms receive far more material than they can personally read, and the coverage system allows readers to provide a substantive assessment that the executive uses to decide whether to read the script itself.

The standard coverage format: a one-paragraph logline; a one-to-two-page synopsis; and a structured evaluation of the script's elements (concept, characters, story, dialogue, structure) rated on a scale that varies by company (usually Pass, Consider, Recommend) with a brief analysis of strengths and weaknesses supporting the rating. The overall rating -- particularly the difference between Consider and Recommend -- is the primary information that the executive uses in deciding whether to read the script.

What Readers Actually Look For

What readers actually look for: the concept's commercial viability (is this a project that the company would make?); the characters' distinctiveness and relatability; the story's structural competence; and the writer's voice -- the specific quality of the writing that indicates whether this writer is someone the company would want a relationship with regardless of whether this specific project proceeds. A coverage note that says "the project does not fit our slate but the writer has a distinctive voice worth tracking" can produce a general meeting that the rejection alone would not. Screenplay.biz covers coverage because understanding what the reader is writing determines what the writer can usefully know about the development process.

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