One thing with specs, is although the studio may own the script, characters, etc, ideas and themes are somewhat harder to define as property, intellectual or otherwise. With a premise of a brilliant scientist who has his mind transplanted into the body of a serial killer, it is easy to see similarities between Whedon's 1994 script Afterlife, and his later work on Dollhouse. Being torn between his own desire to escape The Tank, the government research facility he is being held in, and to be reunited with his wife, and that of his new body's previous owner who wishes to carry on killing, it obviously deals with themes such as identity and 'life' after death. Even closer than this, the specific struggle of Daniel Hoffstetter 'owning' his new body can be likened to that of Echo and Caroline, and the re-emerging psyche of a serial killer has Alpha written all over it. Sold for an initial $1.5 Million to Sony, it wasn't until 2000 that a director became attached to the project; Andy Tennant who had just finished Anna And The King with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat. In later years he went on to prove his action comedy credentials with the not too shabby Hitch and The Bounty Hunter, but Whedon's script wasn't to be given a life of it's own.
