Book-to-Movie, Rights Question

You can write a script without getting the book or character rights as an interesting writing exercise, but you need to understand that won't be able to sell the screenplay to anyone. Or, more to the point, the only person who can buy the screenplay is the person who owns the underlying book rights.

For example, the guy who wrote 'Muppet Man' did it without owning any of the rights to the underlying characters - he did it as a writing exercise to show off a cool story. It was bought by the only company who could buy it - Jim Henson's company.

If it's a well known trilogy then you can be sure that you can't afford the amount of money they'll want.

OTOH, you might be surprised. People have done screenplay adaption for well known (but quite old) books quite cheaply. (eg: The Other Celia)

To be honest, the odds of selling ANY spec screenplay is so incredibly low you might as well just do it as an interesting writing exercise.

Good luck !

Mac

Otterella said:

If I wanted to write a screenplay to turn my favorite book (actually my favorite trilogy) into a movie, how would I start? Can I just start writing, and then try to get the rights from there? Or do I need to have the rights before I can write a word of it? I don't suppose there's any chance they would take a chance on a nobody.

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What you need to understand is this.

Intellectual property (like that favorite trilogy) is, well -- property.

The movie adaptation rights belong to somebody else and those rights include the right to write a screenplay based on them.

And what you have to realize is that, since authors can and do *sell* rights, if you're talking about anything like a well-known trilogy, there's a very good chance that the rights have already been sold.

You shouldn't think that because you haven't read anything about the movie being in production that the rights weren't tied up, potentially, years ago.

I was interested in adapting a little-known book written by T.H. White (who wrote Once and Future King) -- back in the fifties. But before I moved ahead I checked to find out whether the rights were available and it turned out that Columbia Studios had acquired the rights to *everything* that T. H. White had written back around that time. Bought it all up. And just kept it. Never developed any of it.

But the point is -- they bought it. They owned it. And they still own it. And that means that none of it was available for me to option. It means that the only way that I could possibly develop the project was to go to Columbia and say, "would you like to *pay me* to develop this little odd ball book of T. H. White's that you bought sixty years ago.

To which they would say, "Why would we do that? If we wanted to develop it, we would have already done it."

Why would they have to pay me? Because both I and they are members of the WGA and while I, on my own, could write a spec script, or option a property and write a script based on it, for free on my own -- I can't write a screenplay for a studio, for free, on spec. They would have to pay me, because we're both contractually bound by guild rules to do it that way.

And it's just not worth it for them to roll the dice on a project that, while they own, they've never been interested in developing.

And for me to roll the dice, write the screenplay on the sly, and then call Columbia and say, "Hey, you own it, I've written the screenplay on the sly -- if you like it, why don't you pay me for it --"

Well, it's the same deal. The overwhelming likelihood is that they'd say, "We have no interest in developing it. Otherwise, we would have."

Or, even if they were interested in the script, since I'd already written it, and I had nowhere else to take it, my ability to negotiate with them puts all the cards in their pocket. They could easily say, "Hey, love the script, we'll give you Guild Minimum for it. Take it or leave it."

What could I do, given that I wrote a script based on something I didn't have any rights to -- and thus had no *right* to write in the first place?

That's why I never pursued the project and why it's a bad idea to write things for which you *don't* already own the rights and for which you haven't found out who actually does.

Unless you're doing it strictly as a learning exercise.

NMS

Call the publisher of the book and tell them you want to check on whether the movie rights are available for a particular title. (Some publishers have departments devoted to this.) They will tell you who owns the rights. If it's an American novel, and the movie rights haven't been sold, then they belong to the author (or his estate).

If a studio or producer already has the rights - move on. (If it's an independent producer, track him down and ask if you could write the script for him.)

If the author still retains the rights and it's a little known trilogy, tell him you'd like to obtain the film rights. (Maybe you can send him a treatment of the proposed screenplay or the first ten pages.) You'll need to option the rights for a short amount of time (time to write + time to shop) - unless you can afford to buy the rights from him. But that could cost more than you have.

However, I've seen all kinds of deals made over the years. Some authors love the screenwriter so much, they just turn over the rights for free. Or for a dollar. Others option for small amounts of money.

If this is a popular series of books, the rights have, most likely, been scooped up already. (Or will cost you a lot of money. The more popular the book, the more it will cost.)

Overall, it's a waste of time to write an adaptation of a book if you don't have the rights. In theory, it would be a copyright infringement for you to even share the script with someone else. So, in theory, you couldn't even use it as a writing sample. (Although, this rule is broken often.)

As others have suggested, if you're a dilettante and simply want to write the adaptation to get out of your system, go ahead.

Good luck.

The way I understand it, anyone is free to adapt works that are in the public domain. If a book is in the public domain, the legal issues may be alleviated, but an adaptation can present a different set of challenges for a new writer.

It can be difficult to get producers and agents to look at an adaptation if it’s your first project. Particularly agents, who want to know you’re capable of coming up with your own stories. An adaptation doesn’t really give them an idea of your writing abilities, or how much money they could potentially make from your scripts.

If a production company was interested in adapting a book into film, they wouldn’t do it with a new writer’s script. They can afford someone with a track record(their own writers).

There are a few misconceptions here. First, screenplays are hard to sell to large studios. But people sell there screenplays everyday. you do the best you can and hold on to see what happens.

Second, the trilogy movie rights may be for sale, but just because you write the script doesn't mean anyone will produce it. If you plan to buy the movie rights, plan to produce it.

While there are thousands of small, independent production companies, selling a script to one of them will not make you rich, no more than selling a book to a small press will make you rich. I've sold a couple and have averaged a couple thousand a screenplay. Not great money, but it helps.

The question really is complicated.

A modern retelling or 'inspired by' is a nice way to get the juices going. I recently completed a modern day Don Quixote tale. It wasn't a strict retelling, but more of an homage to the piece. I used it as inspiration, but the actual modern day tale stands on its own.

Okay. I have a similar question. I'm writing a script in which a character quotes Coleridge at some point, and I think one of the lines from the quoted poem would make for a great title (better than my working title) that fits the story well. I remember that there is a novel from the 70s with the same title based on the quote from the same poem, but my story has nothing to do with that novel. Could I use it as a title?

For anyone interested, it comes from the fifth line of the poem Kubla Khan:
"Down to a sunless sea." The novel I speak of has that as the title and was written by David Graham.

MajorLance said:

Okay. I have a similar question. I'm writing a script in which a character quotes Coleridge at some point, and I think one of the lines from the quoted poem would make for a great title (better than my working title) that fits the story well. ... Could I use it as a title?

For anyone interested, it comes from the fifth line of the poem Kubla Khan:
"Down to a sunless sea." The novel I speak of has that as the title and was written by David Graham.

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Yep. No problem.

It is too old to be a copyright issue, and the only trademark issue would seem to be if there could be a genuine level of confusion with an existing product. eg - Even if you happen to find the phrase 'The Time Traveller's Wife' in an old poem - you aren't going to get away with using it as a film title !

But a title like 'Down to a sunless sea' is pretty generic and I don't think the novel is famous enough to give a general likelyhood of confusion.

Good luck !

Mac

Mac H. said:

Yep. No problem.

It is too old to be a copyright issue, and the only trademark issue would seem to be if there could be a genuine level of confusion with an existing product. eg - Even if you happen to find the phrase 'The Time Traveller's Wife' in an old poem - you aren't going to get away with using it as a film title !

But a title like 'Down to a sunless sea' is pretty generic and I don't think the novel is famous enough to give a general likelyhood of confusion.

Good luck !

Mac

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While titles can't be copyrighted and are rarely trademarked, they can and are "registered" by the Producer's association -- an organization to which virtually every Hollywood producer is a member.

The idea, of course, is to prevent members from releasing, accidentally, on purpose or even "accidentally on purpose" movies with similar or identical titles within a certain window of time, and thus creating confusion in the minds of movie-goers.

So if someone, say, registers the title, "Avatar" for a theatrical motion picture, it doesn't matter if there's been a long-running anime cartoon series called, "Avatar-The Last Airbender" on TV. Somebody else wants to release a live-action theatrical version of that movie -- even somebody big and famous (although not as big and famous as whoever wanted to release the other Avatar) -- he's out of luck. He's got to change the name of the movie and remove the "Avatar" from the title.

Now, if Shyamalan had hit first and registered mthe title first, then Cameron would likely have been out of luck -- or more likely he would have called somebody up and paid them a fistful of money and just bought the rights to the title -- but he would have had to do that because the title would have previously been registered.

So the point is -- you have to make sure that the title hasn't been registered.

Or, at this point, just use whatever title you want. If and when it comes to the point where the movie has been bought and greenlit and if, at the point, it becomes an issue, then they'll have to come up with a new title.

NMS

nmstevens said:

While titles can't be copyrighted and are rarely trademarked, they can and are "registered" by the Producer's association -- an organization to which virtually every Hollywood producer is a member.

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Just to be pedantic, I think it's the MPAA's Title Registration Bureau.

It's set up to avoid the 'genuine level of confusion with an existing product'.

In one arbitration the producers of 'Scream' were told that they have to pay at least $6 million to the creators of an old sci-fi film called 'Screamers'. They only opened themselves up to that penalty because they chose to be a part of the MPAA Title Registration rules.

Since the whole system is voluntary (although once you join you have to pay the penalties) small indie producers are being advised *NOT* to join the scheme. After all - why set yourself up for massive penalties just because someone else had a similar sounding title before? Especially when there's a chance the film won't even be picked up for distribution.

If your indie film gets picked up for distribution in the USA by an MPAA signatory, then they can tweak the title to make it past their byzantine rules.

(And what kind of rules permits two films with identical titles like 'Crash' within the same decade, yet argues that you can't have a James Bond genre parody with a title that's obviously a parody of a James Bond title? Or claims that a low-budget direct-to-DVD sci fi film 'Screamers' means that nobody can make a horror film called 'Scream' without paying MILLIONS of dollars? The irony was that there was already a film called 'Screamers' before then - yet they didn't have to pay anyone else to reuse the title! )

Or, at this point, just use whatever title you want. If and when it comes to the point where the movie has been bought and greenlit and if, at the point, it becomes an issue, then they'll have to come up with a new title.

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Yeah - that's the part we agree on. Or, if you go true indie, you might not even need to worry about it then !

Good luck !

Mac