Jamesaritchie said:
I thinnk you're on track, but I'd never even consider either an option at such a miniscule price. Your low purchase price isn't much higher than my minimum option price, and not for five years, either.
Tying up a story for five years for only five hundred bucks? You have to be kidding.
Five years is a bit on the long side. It would be better perhaps to structure the option in increments of time, so that as a period runs out, the option can be extended.
But you don't need five years anyway. You need two, with an option to extend for an additional year, for three all told.
The first year is dedicated to writing the script. I don't think, as Derek suggested, this can be done in much less time so give yourself room to breath. Second year is dedicated to marketing and selling the piece and getting a deal for a picture. The option to extend for an additional year protects against being "this close" at the end of the second year and facing an expirey. If you don't have a sale by the end of three years, odds are you're never going to have a sale.
One other thing I'd do is make payment in full for the rights contingent upon a sale of the script. Thus if you never sell the script, you never pay for the story rights. But if you do sell the script, you do pay for the story rights. This condition is not all that uncommon in option deals.
As far as pricing and values, the buyer and seller simply have to negotiate unil they reach agreed upon sums.
Keep in mind too that the author of the story will be due some or all of the "story by" credit on the picture and this will earn him some % of the script's sale price, 25% if he gets a full "story by" credit, half that if he shares it with the screenwriter.
