Help please. How much time...

ALG71 · Jul 7, 2008

Hello everyone. I'm sure this has probably been answered here but whenever I search for a similar thread I either come up with nothing or an endless amount of threads. Ok here's the situation:

A few years ago I wrote the first 2 drafts of a screenplay that takes place a few years from now involving a "predicted" event. When I first wrote this I had hoped it would be ready with plenty of time to find an agent or production company that would buy it, but procrastination and working on other projects has led me to think that I may have missed the window I was aiming at. That's not exactly a bad thing because when I look back at my older drafts of works, I see just how little I knew about writing compared to what I know now through books and AW. I would, without question, trade the sale of one screenplay for all the knowledge I've gained here in the past 11 months and the other past few years from books, not to mention everything else I've yet to learn through both.

I'm considering putting it away, maybe someday rewriting and polishing it just to keep as a writing sample should I ever be lucky enough for an agent or production company to ask "What else do you have?"

So, hypothetically, not including the time it takes to find an agent or production company to buy a script, not including time a screenplay might be in limbo while it's optioned, and not including--when a screenplay is sold--the time it might stay in a prod companies vault until someone finally says, "Okay, let's make this." And not including finding financing.

Can anyone give a rough estimate of how long it takes from the moment something has been given the green light until a movie is finished?

That includes all the pre-production stuff--casting, storyboarding, requested rewrites, the filming itself, and post-production--editing, reshooting scenes and everything else involved.

I realize it would depend on the company, faith in the project, and probably a dozen other factors. But it's the middle of 2008 and I'm just starting a 3rd draft with a much more knowledgeable head on my shoulders. However, it could take me half a year just to have a really good draft finished and that doesn't include finding an agent/prod. company. The story takes place in 2012 and I had originally hoped to have something ready, sold and made for that year (despite the odds of a new, unpublished, never-sold-anything writer having success on their first time out).

I have far too much on my plate at the moment, and I think maybe I should put it in the "shelved work" cabinet and focus on my other projects. So for the above question, anywhere between 1 to 3 years, 2 to 4 years? Just a general answer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all. Sorry for hurting your eyes with my long post.

Jon-Luke · Jul 7, 2008

I wouldn't count on anything... From the time a movie is green lit to the time it is complete can be anywhere between 4 weeks to NEVER (See the documentary "Lost in La Mancha"). It all depends... and each movie has a host of different variables that can effect this. As long as your story can be rewritten to 2014 or 2016 or 2020 or 2013 then I really wouldn't worry. The one thing I can guarantee is that the original script will be rewritten!

nmstevens · Jul 7, 2008

ALG71 said:
Hello everyone. I'm sure this has probably been answered here but whenever I search for a similar thread I either come up with nothing or an endless amount of threads. Ok here's the situation:

A few years ago I wrote the first 2 drafts of a screenplay that takes place a few years from now involving a "predicted" event. When I first wrote this I had hoped it would be ready with plenty of time to find an agent or production company that would buy it, but procrastination and working on other projects has led me to think that I may have missed the window I was aiming at. That's not exactly a bad thing because when I look back at my older drafts of works, I see just how little I knew about writing compared to what I know now through books and AW. I would, without question, trade the sale of one screenplay for all the knowledge I've gained here in the past 11 months and the other past few years from books, not to mention everything else I've yet to learn through both.

I'm considering putting it away, maybe someday rewriting and polishing it just to keep as a writing sample should I ever be lucky enough for an agent or production company to ask "What else do you have?"

So, hypothetically, not including the time it takes to find an agent or production company to buy a script, not including time a screenplay might be in limbo while it's optioned, and not including--when a screenplay is sold--the time it might stay in a prod companies vault until someone finally says, "Okay, let's make this." And not including finding financing.

Can anyone give a rough estimate of how long it takes from the moment something has been given the green light until a movie is finished?

That includes all the pre-production stuff--casting, storyboarding, requested rewrites, the filming itself, and post-production--editing, reshooting scenes and everything else involved.

I realize it would depend on the company, faith in the project, and probably a dozen other factors. But it's the middle of 2008 and I'm just starting a 3rd draft with a much more knowledgeable head on my shoulders. However, it could take me half a year just to have a really good draft finished and that doesn't include finding an agent/prod. company. The story takes place in 2012 and I had originally hoped to have something ready, sold and made for that year (despite the odds of a new, unpublished, never-sold-anything writer having success on their first time out).

I have far too much on my plate at the moment, and I think maybe I should put it in the "shelved work" cabinet and focus on my other projects. So for the above question, anywhere between 1 to 3 years, 2 to 4 years? Just a general answer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all. Sorry for hurting your eyes with my long post.

You can pretty much count on -- from the time a script is actually "set up" -- which is different from being optioned or bought (it can be many months or even years from the time a script is optioned or bought to being "set up" -- set up means that the financing is in place -- they are moving forward toward making it. It isn't exactly a green light, because "set up" doesn't necessarily mean that they've gotten all the necessary elements in place, like the key cast -- what it means is that the money is there to acquire those elements) that you're looking at something between a year to two years before the movie is in the theatre.

A year would be quite short. It would be unusual for a movie to go from being "set up" to being in the theatres in that short a period of time.

But what you really have to worry about, with scripts that have been sitting around for awhile isn't so much the dates -- you can always just push them into the future.

It's the technology. I've written scripts as little as ten years ago (yeah, okay, it sounds like a long time ago) - go back ten years -- guess what? No internet. No youtube. No DVDs. No cell phones, to speak of. Really. they virtually didn't exist. At any rate, very few people carried them.

So you start looking at these scripts that you wrote not very long ago and it's shocking how quickly they date. Somebody's slapping a tape into a VCR. Oops. Nope. Slipping a floppy disk into his computer. Oops. Nope. Going on line with his dial-up connection. Hmm -- no, not really.

Things just change constantly -- so any script that's been hanging around for more than a year or two, if you're going to send it out, you'd better check it over just to make sure that it hasn't dated in ways that you might not suspect.

NMS

Blondchen · Jul 7, 2008

Well, that depends on about a million different factors, from genre to the production companies and studios (if any) involved, to the casting, the post, blah blah blah.

In generalities, a year minimum. Totally possible. My husband was brought in on a first page rewrite of a script and the film was released a mere 8 months later. Feature length, big studio production. On the other end, never is a good possibility.

Lillyth · Jul 7, 2008

It sounds to me like you are dealing with the end of the Mayan calendar, and you are concerned about that being able to work, when all is said and done.

You could always (I know it's lame, but whatever, right) have one of the characters figure out that the Mayan calendar was really "off" by two years, and that, though we have all made it safely through the year 2012 without the world ending, we now see that the Mayan calendar is really three years off, which puts the end of the world at *gasp* in three days!

Or somesuch thing of that nature...

If I were the moviegoing public, I'd buy it. I might think it was cheezy, but I'd buy it. Why? Because ultimately it's more fun to believe in apocolyptic end-of-the-world scenarios than not.

ALG71 · Jul 7, 2008

Thanks Jon-Luke, nmstevens and Blondchen. As I think about it, I have something else to consider as well. There's probably a half dozen studios, production companies, and writers with agents and sales who have screenplays based on the same event that my screenplay is based on.

EDIT: Hi Lillyth. Actually I considered that, too. Our interpretations were wrong and we were off by a few years.

EDIT again: And yeah, that's what my screenplay is based on. Like I said, there's probably a half dozen completed good scripts out there already on the same event.

ALG71 · Jul 7, 2008

On a positive note, if I decide to shelve it and devote my time to projects that are much closer to completion and the query phase, at least this screenplay was good practice for learning about screenplay formats and the three Acts and a few other things I learned about. I've learned a ton more since then that I can't wait to implement in my next screenplays.

Blondchen · Jul 7, 2008

One more thing to consider - if you don't have an agent yet, add another 6 months to a year onto the process.

zeprosnepsid · Jul 7, 2008

If the script is good enough, you won't need the true fact of the Mayan calendar. You can just base it on that and call it the Aztec calendar.

But if a producer is really interested, and they really want to get it out by 2012, then they'll see to that.

So yeah, you can't do anything about it at the moment. Just keep plugging away and deal with it when it comes to it.

Good luck!

Lillyth · Jul 9, 2008

Of course, if the Mayans were right, we only have 4 more years to worry about this, and chances are we'll only have time for one to two movies each before the world ends anyway...

robertmblevins · Jul 10, 2008

I think Jon-Luke has the best response to the question. As far as screenplays go, it's not a stretch to paraphrase an old saying:

'Many are sold, but few are chosen...' (to actually make it to film)

Rewrites? Director's options? Oh, yeah. Take a look at the original screenplays for 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Cast Away', for good examples. They are both much different from the actual films.

Rainy Night · Jul 10, 2008

ALG71 said:
I realize it would depend on the company, faith in the project, and probably a dozen other factors. But it's the middle of 2008 and I'm just starting a 3rd draft with a much more knowledgeable head on my shoulders. However, it could take me half a year just to have a really good draft finished and that doesn't include finding an agent/prod. company. The story takes place in 2012 and I had originally hoped to have something ready, sold and made for that year (despite the odds of a new, unpublished, never-sold-anything writer having success on their first time out).

Not to discourage you from anything...

If you are writing a 2012 doomsday pic there are alreay 2 big budget projects underway, one at Sony and the other at WB. I think the Sony project will screen first, I'm not sure if WB has greenlighted theirs.

So if that is what yours is about (IMHO) you are facing a bigger uphill battle to get it sold and produced.

But then again stranger things have happened.

Again if you feel strongly about it go ahead and write it but be aware of your competition. As a suggestion, there are all kinds of doomsday prophecies, keep the basic story and write it around a different event in a different year.

I could be off base if this is not what your script is about.

Best 'o luck

ALG71 · Jul 10, 2008

No Rainy Night. You didn't discourage me. In fact, up above in one of my posts I had guessed there was probably half a dozen studios with the same type of story lined up. The two you mention are probably written by big time writers and have big time directors attached already. And as you quoted me, the odds of someone like me--new, no writing credits at all to speak of...yet--competing with veterans are very, very slim.

That's a big part of the reason for this post. I posted above that I wasn't even including the time it would take me to finish a very good draft (end of the year at best), plus the time it would take me to shop it around to agents or production companies, and the time it would take if it were optioned, and then all the pre-planning. We're talking 2 or 3 years in that alone.

That's why I had asked how long it takes from the time that a studio says "Go" (after they've bought it) to the time it's completely finished. It would be cutting it very close to Dec. 2012.

With those kind of odds, I was debating if it was worth it to continue putting time into that 2012 screenplay when I already have half a dozen projects going right now (3 at the forefront) that I could be devoting my time to and which aren't time specific exactly.

Thanks everyone for your input. Like I said somewhere above, I'm probably going to shelve it for now. If I come up with a way to change it someday I will. At the very least, I'll polish it up someday just in case someone in the industry wants to see writing samples. And, although I only had 2 drafts of the story completed, it was very good practice for my future screenplays.

Help please. How much time...

ALG71

Defanged Hellraiser

Jon-Luke

Anomalous crusader

nmstevens

What happened?

Blondchen

Honey Badger don't give a shit.

Lillyth

ALG71

Defanged Hellraiser

ALG71

Defanged Hellraiser

Blondchen

Honey Badger don't give a shit.

zeprosnepsid

Lillyth

robertmblevins

Rainy Night

INFJ

ALG71

Defanged Hellraiser