TV Movie vs theatrical release

[scriptwriter74]

So I am currently working 2 avenues for theatrical release with an actress passing a treatment around to a few producer friends and an actor/producer who is woking on a distribution deal to have the money to buy the script. In the interim I received positive feedback from another actress but she wants to pass it along as a movie of the week or Tv movie for the family channel, disney channel or USA network. She says she has producer friends that actively are producing tv movies now.

Besides the obvious decrease in pay of a tv movie, what are the negatives? If I sell to them am I selling to a particular network or a production company and then I have no guarantee whether it ends up on some crappy cable channel with no viewership? I know beggers shouldn't be choosers as I am currently unproduced and a credit would probably help my future, my main concern is that my script is set up for a sequel and I want to make sure I am involved with it and at the very least the sequel is a theatrical release.

I currently have only written 2 full theatrical feature scripts written and I am not sure if a tv movie is formatted differently. I know tv shows are different, but what about tv movies?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[icerose]

In this industry there really are no guarantees. If it ends up crappy with no viewership it's because either the writing was crappy, the acting was crappy, the production values were crappy or a combination of the three. All you can do is make sure your end is the very best it can be.

Most movies that are produced do not make it to the theatres. Only the big money makers really make it to the theatres.

TV money comes from advertisement, the more viewers something gets the more money it makes, if it garners a lot of viewers during a first time run chances are they'll show it again and release it on dvd. There are also movies that do poorly are not shown again except maybe late at night and never make it to dvd. The ideal if you're getting a made for tv movie would be to have excellent ratings, good solid reviews and to see it end up on dvd with good solid sales. The chances of a sequel of a made for tv movie ending up in theatrical release is so slim I've never heard of a single example of that happening. Sequels in general very rarely end up in theatres, the first one had to do absolutely amazing and the sequel has to be pretty darn amazing for studios to even consider releasing it to theatres. The cost involved is too high otherwise.

As for the term theatrical feature scripts, the term doesn't exist. In the end it's between the prodco and their distributors and whether or not they decide if they'll make enough money to justify theatrical release.

[scriptwriter74]

thanks for your comments

the only tv movie to jump to theaters I have seen is High School Musical then High School Musical 2

Icerose, would the formatting of my script be different for a made for tv movie?

[icerose]

As far as I know they're pretty much the same, I do know tv series and shows tend to be in all caps, but those are when you're an in house writer. I haven't seen any major variations really outside that. I've certainly not been rejected from the series work I've done for having it in standard screenplay format, they just want to see it written well is all they've cared about.