who here has sold one yet?

[didi768]

If you did sell a script, what do they pay, just ballpark.

thanks,
dianne

[SimonSays]

Dianne

You can expect to make somewhere between 10 thousand and one million - it's a very big ballpark.

The guild minimums are in the area of 50-100K depending on the production budget - but you can often get considerably more depending on a number of factors that are totally arbitrary and impossible to explain.

On the other hand non-guild signatories - especially indies that do ultra-low budget stuff sometimes pay considerably less. And there are some producers out there who want to pay next to nothing - or literally nothing for a script.

[Writing Again]

SimonSays,

I can conceive of making a first sale for literally nothing, if it benefited your reputation and enhanced your future selling potential.

However I don't know if such a situation ever happens.

If such situations do happen, how would you know if you were being given an opportunity or being suckered?

[SimonSays]

I'm not advocating selling a script for next to nothing, quite the opposite. But there are a lot of people out there looking to get a script for nothing.

It's hard to know in that instance if you're being suckered and its also hard to know if it will help your reputation or career even if you're not being suckered.

If the film turns out to be a no budget piece of crap that can't get into festivals or get distribution (which happens with the majority of low budget indies), then it will not help your career and you have also lost your script - once it's made, you can't go sell the script to someone else. I guess you'd really have to look at the credits of the producer.

Personally if I was a newbie and I had a good script I'd focus my energies on finding an agent to help me establish myself rather than selling a script for 2 grand. Get an agent and he might be able to sell it for 50 times that much. 2 grand should be the option amount, not the selling price.

But if you do consider going this route, and someone offers you 2 grand and they've got a 200K budget, then ask for a piece of the film as well. Make sure it's gross profits, not net. Also if someone's got a million dollar budget and they offer you 2 grand there's something wrong there. They should throw a larger percentage of the budget toward the script. I'm not sure what percentage it would be for a budget that small I'd guess at least 1 or 2% - maybe someone else has a better sense of budgets in that range.

There's a difference between paying your dues and being taken advantage of.

[joecalabre]

I agree with Simon,

You get what you pay for and in this case, you get what someone else pays for it.

If a producer wants to give you a dollar option, he is only interested in getting properties to build up his library of potential projects, to make himself look good for investors.

If a producer pays a dollar for your script, is he going to try hard to make it? I doubt it. If he doesn't make it, he only lost a dollar.

No risk = no vested interest.

If they are serious about your script, then they should be serious about offering you atleast enough to have a vested interest in getting it produced...

Of course, each offer should be evaluated for what you consider to be best for you.

I had an old script ten years ago (one I thought ran it's course and had no saleability.) I let it go for a $200 option for 18 months. But that was because I didn't think it was going anywhere and the press release saying I had an option was worth more to me than the script sitting on a shelf. It ended up not getting made and I got my work back. It's still sitting on my "dead" shelf and there still is no interest.

Atleast I made enough to take my friends to the bar and has some good press over it.

[SimonSays]

Once again Joe and I are in agreement. The more money a producer puts into the script - the more motivated he is to get the project made.

But if I had to make a choice between selling a script for a couple grand or optioining a script for a couple grand - I'd go with the option and here's why.

With a sale, once the contract is signed and you are paid - game over. You have transferred your rights to your script. If the script doesn't end up going and you want the rights back, you will have to buy them back, and that's only if the producer is willng to sell them back.

With an option, by the time the option expires - you will either a) sell your script for the agreed upon purchase price or b) the rights of your project will revert back to you - and you don't have return the option money.

If you don't have an agent and are considering an option deal - here are a couple of suggestions. If the producer offers you a set purchase price (i.e. 50K) try to negotiate for a percentage of the budget with the 50K as a guarnteed floor. This way if Ben Stiller comes on board and suddenly the anticipated production budget of 3 million balloons to 15 million - you will get a larger piece of what is now a bigger pie. Not sure what the acceptable percentage is at this point in time. When I optioned scripts my option deals were anywhere from 2 1/2% - 5% depending on the project. 2 1/2% of 15 million is 375K - significantly more money. Some producers will want to put a ceiling on the amount as well as floor - so maybe they'll want to cap it at say 400K no matter how high budget ends up getting. Also sometimes the star salaries might be excluded from the budget figures - in my example Ben Stiller might get 15 million so the actual budget would be 30 - but for the purposes of calculating your fee it will be 15.

Good producers will often offer these types of deals even if you don't have an agent. But if they don't there's nothing wrong with suggesting it yourself.

[JustinoXV]

"I can conceive of making a first sale for literally nothing, if it benefited your reputation and enhanced your future selling potential."

If a producer doesn't have the money to pay for your script, chances are he/she doesn't have the money to produce it. Not only could they end up making a no budget piece of crap that never gets distribution or into the film festivals (thus not getting you any recognition), it's quite possible that nothing will even be filmed.

[Writing Again]

Thank you to all of you.