Fresh faces fuel surge in deals

March 31, 2008 When a high-ranking development executive predicted a spec boom just as the writers strike was ending, Michael Martin is probably not whom he had in mind. [...] the Brooklyn tollbooth worker, like the insurance salesman living with his parents in Pennsylvania or the unknown Georgia-based indie filmmaker who only recently moved to Los Angeles, is becoming the unlikely avatar of a new movement. But instead of the expected flurry of deals from such A-listers as Stephen Gaghan and Steven Zaillian, it's coming from writers with barely a credit to their name.

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