I know this is going to sound like a rediculously simple question but I will ask it anyway. As I option my script, does that merely allow the producer to secure or put a hold on anyone else reviewing the project? When is the producer allowed to actually cast the film or move forward, only when the purchase is exercised?
When a producer has an option he can pretty much do anything he would otherwise do with a property that he owns with only a *single* exception.
He can budget the project. He can attach a director. He can hire other writers to rewrite the script. He can send it around to try to find a cast. He can attach a cast. He can do everything he would normally do in the course of developing a project.
There's only one thing he can't do.
He can't go into production.
Because *that* is what triggers the exercise of the option.
Now, the option can also expire. Usually they have the ability to renew it once, if it's still actively in development. If it goes for the full length of the development period and they still haven't managed to get the financing in place, then it goes into turnaround and everything they've done goes to waste.
That is, all of those rewrites they've paid other writers to do tumble into limbo because, while they own the right to those rewrites (since they paid for them), they no longer have any right to the underlying material so they can't do anything with them.
It's just another big chunk of money on the minus side of their development budget.
NMS
