books to film??

[avid-dreamer]

Hi all, I was just wondering if there is some way for an author to retain film rights to their novel once they have an agent and a willing publisher? I am asking because I just finished a manuscript and I might have an agent pretty soon. However, I would really like to see my work on the big screen (my everlasting dream, sigh*). I think the story has potential and I am willing to do whatever it takes to get it where I want it.
ALSO,
I have been reading some posts here and I have a question: I want to write a screenplay and I want to know if it is even remotely possible for an agent to
accept work from a first time writer without recommendations? And let's just say the script would be a bit costly to produce, but it's an original idea. Would it simply be dismissed because the writer has no credits?
Please forgive my ignorant questions. I'm just trying to understand the industry. Thanks for the help!

[Hillgate]

Hi all, I was just wondering if there is some way for an author to retain film rights to their novel once they have an agent and a willing publisher?

YOU CAN ALWAYS ASK, BUT DEPENDS ON YOUR CONTRACT.

I am asking because I just finished a manuscript and I might have an agent pretty soon.

MAKE IT A CONDITION THAT YOU RETAIN FILM RIGHTS BEFORE CONTRACTING BUT THIS MAY PUT SOME AGENTS OFF.

I want to write a screenplay

GO FOR IT BUT VERY DIFFERENT CRAFT TO WRITING A NOVEL AND NOT EVERYTHING TRANSLATES WELL TO SCREEN ESPECIALLY INTERNALISED STORIES.

Remotely possible for an agent to accept work from a first time writer without recommendations?

IT'S POSSIBLE BUT NOT LIKELY

And let's just say the script would be a bit costly to produce, but it's an original idea.

THAT'S FINE. GOOD IDEAS WORK WELL BUT BE CAREFUL IF IT'S VERY HIGH-CONCEPT AND ORIGINAL BECAUSE SOMEONE CAN EASILY 'COPY' YOUR CONCEPT...

Would it simply be dismissed because the writer has no credits? NO.
Please forgive my ignorant questions.
NOT IGNORANT AT ALL. PEOPLE CAN BE REAL SH*TS IN THIS BUSINESS SO IF IN ANY DOUBT GET A GOOD LAWYER BEHIND YOU. IT'S EXTREMELY USEFUL.

[Stijn Hommes]

The publisher won't have any use for film rights, so it's unlikely they will even buy them and as long as they haven't been bought, you retain them. What you want is an agent who can sell film rights or one who has contacts with another agent who is specialized in them. As long as the material is something they like, it doesn't matter if you are new or not.

[aruna]

Just wanted to add that I automatically retained film rights when my novels were sold. Your agent will see to this, and see about the novel's marketability for film.
It is far easier to sell a novel than a screenplay - I have tried both, so believe me. For as start, it is easier to get a novel manuscript even read than a screenplay manuscript; and that is not even considering how much more difficult it is to get a screenplay right the first time.
My advice about the screenplay idea: write it s a novel, and try to get that sold. Then sell the movie rights (if you can!)

[NikeeGoddess]

you can retain the film rights in your contract but it would probably mean less money in your pocket because that is a sale they'll lose BUT it may never have been a sale in the first place. don't suggest it until your solid with the publisher.

you may be able to find an agent/agent house who deals in both novels and screenplays. also, it's much easier, not that it's easy, to get a hollywierd industry agent if you come in with a screenplay from an already published novel.

invest in some books on adaptations. there is much in a novel that is not filmworthy and it's a different process that writing a script from scratch*.

jaws is one of my favorite examples. spielberg saw the manuscript for the novel before it was published. but he wasn't a screenwriter - benchley wrote the screen adaptation for his own novel. it was not easy and he vowed never to do that again. *you may want to hire a screenwriter to adapt it for you.

spielberg - the king of adaptations: jaws, the color purple, close encounters, catch me if you can, etc... this should tell you that being "costly" will not be a factor if the story is good enough.

[Stijn Hommes]

There was an episode on the podcast Writers Talking (www.writerstalking.com) that was about Screenplays and adaptations. I think it was episode 11.

[aruna]

you can retain the film rights in your contract but it would probably mean less money in your pocket because that is a sale they'll lose BUT it may never have been a sale in the first place. don't suggest it until your solid with the publisher.

Actually, if you have an agent it;s fairly boilerplate that you retain film rights. As well as world rights.

you may be able to find an agent/agent house who deals in both novels and screenplays. also, it's much easier, not that it's easy, to get a hollywierd industry agent if you come in with a screenplay from an already published novel.

Any fiction agent worth her salt will have ties to a sub-agent who deals in films, if she does not do so herself.


jaws is one of my favorite examples. spielberg saw the manuscript for the novel before it was published. but he wasn't a screenwriter - benchley wrote the screen adaptation for his own novel. it was not easy and he vowed never to do that again. *you may want to hire a screenwriter to adapt it for you.

There's also The Horse Whisperer. Robert Redford picked up the novel ms for that - it wasn't even finished - at the Frankfurt Book Fair, before it sold to a publisher. But that kind of thing is a once-in-a-lifetime bit of serendipity; you can't plan for it.

[Plot Device]

Try this man.

http://www.paulslevine.com/

He's a Hollywood lawyer who is also a literary agent. And he specilaizes in books-to-film negotiations.


But he doesn't do either fantasy or sci-fi.

[nmstevens]

Hi all, I was just wondering if there is some way for an author to retain film rights to their novel once they have an agent and a willing publisher? I am asking because I just finished a manuscript and I might have an agent pretty soon. However, I would really like to see my work on the big screen (my everlasting dream, sigh*). I think the story has potential and I am willing to do whatever it takes to get it where I want it.
ALSO,
I have been reading some posts here and I have a question: I want to write a screenplay and I want to know if it is even remotely possible for an agent to
accept work from a first time writer without recommendations? And let's just say the script would be a bit costly to produce, but it's an original idea. Would it simply be dismissed because the writer has no credits?
Please forgive my ignorant questions. I'm just trying to understand the industry. Thanks for the help!


If you have an agent -- always a good idea before you sign any deal with a publisher -- what you should be negotiating with the publisher, ideally, is "first North American Publishing rights." They would, of course, love to get much more. They would love to get everything. The right to republish indefinitely. Publish on-line for free. Publish internationally. Movie Rights. The right to translate your work into Albanian and put it on billboards and keep the money?

Why not, if you're willing to give it to them. That's why you need an agent, to protect your rights and know what you can reasonably keep and what you probably are not going to be able to keep.

Whatever you do, don't believe what they tell you is "standard" -- because when they tell you that something is "standard" what they mean is, "it's standard practice for us to try to steal this from people who don't know any better."

I've been to seminars where a publisher has literally said that there's no real reason for a writer to bother with getting an agent -- that agents really only interfere with things and slow things down. And said this with a straight face.

It is quite common, and no reason in the world why you should not retain movie rights.

But please understand that simply because you have them doesn't mean that they're worth much of anything. They only have value if somebody else -- say a producer -- wants to make your book into a movie. It isn't enough for you to want to do it. Someone who actually makes movies has to want to do it.

If that happens, they'll then negotiate an option (which is generally ten percent of the full purchase price for the rights). The option can run anything from a year to a few years with renewals and during that time they have the opportunity to try to get the movie set up. If the movie is "set up" -- that is, at the point it actually goes into production, then they "exercise the option" -- they pay you the full amount for the rights, minus the cost of the option.

Regarding you writing the screenplay -- a lot of novelists want to do this and write it into their deals that they get a shot at doing it. From the producer's standpoint -- they pretty much never want the writer of the book to write the screenplay. That's because, while you may be a talented novelist, the skills associated with writing a screenplay are very different.

It isn't simply a matter of taking the scenes from your novel and transposing them to the screen. It is a different medium with fundamentally different strengths and weaknesses and to make the transition from one to the other means that you really have to take your story back to the beginning.

You started out with a story to tell and, essentially said -- how do I tell this story as a novel.

Well, now you have to ask yourself -- how do I tell this story as a movie.

The result can be close or it can very, very different.

The cold, cruel fact is, in the majority of cases, when a writer insists on writing the screenplay, most producers accept this caveat as part of the price of acquiring the underlying material. So they say yes. You write the draft -- and unless the draft really surprises everybody with its wonderfulness, it's going to go into a drawer. They will have fulfilled their contractual requirement by letting you write a draft, and then they'll proceed to do what they intended to do all along, which is go out and hire a professional screenwriter to write the movie.

This may sound cruel, but that's the way it tends to work.

NMS

[Hillgate]

If you have an agent -- always a good idea before you sign any deal with a publisher -- what you should be negotiating with the publisher, ideally, is "first North American Publishing rights." They would, of course, love to get much more. They would love to get everything. The right to republish indefinitely. Publish on-line for free. Publish internationally. Movie Rights. The right to translate your work into Albanian and put it on billboards and keep the money?

Why not, if you're willing to give it to them. That's why you need an agent, to protect your rights and know what you can reasonably keep and what you probably are not going to be able to keep.

Whatever you do, don't believe what they tell you is "standard" -- because when they tell you that something is "standard" what they mean is, "it's standard practice for us to try to steal this from people who don't know any better."

I've been to seminars where a publisher has literally said that there's no real reason for a writer to bother with getting an agent -- that agents really only interfere with things and slow things down. And said this with a straight face.

It is quite common, and no reason in the world why you should not retain movie rights.

But please understand that simply because you have them doesn't mean that they're worth much of anything. They only have value if somebody else -- say a producer -- wants to make your book into a movie. It isn't enough for you to want to do it. Someone who actually makes movies has to want to do it.

If that happens, they'll then negotiate an option (which is generally ten percent of the full purchase price for the rights). The option can run anything from a year to a few years with renewals and during that time they have the opportunity to try to get the movie set up. If the movie is "set up" -- that is, at the point it actually goes into production, then they "exercise the option" -- they pay you the full amount for the rights, minus the cost of the option.

Regarding you writing the screenplay -- a lot of novelists want to do this and write it into their deals that they get a shot at doing it. From the producer's standpoint -- they pretty much never want the writer of the book to write the screenplay. That's because, while you may be a talented novelist, the skills associated with writing a screenplay are very different.

It isn't simply a matter of taking the scenes from your novel and transposing them to the screen. It is a different medium with fundamentally different strengths and weaknesses and to make the transition from one to the other means that you really have to take your story back to the beginning.

You started out with a story to tell and, essentially said -- how do I tell this story as a novel.

Well, now you have to ask yourself -- how do I tell this story as a movie.

The result can be close or it can very, very different.

The cold, cruel fact is, in the majority of cases, when a writer insists on writing the screenplay, most producers accept this caveat as part of the price of acquiring the underlying material. So they say yes. You write the draft -- and unless the draft really surprises everybody with its wonderfulness, it's going to go into a drawer. They will have fulfilled their contractual requirement by letting you write a draft, and then they'll proceed to do what they intended to do all along, which is go out and hire a professional screenwriter to write the movie.

This may sound cruel, but that's the way it tends to work.

NMS

Good advice: just to stress again: if you cannot get an agent for whever reason and you have a publisher breathing down your neck for God's sake get a lawyer who knows their stuff: especially one who eats publishers for breakfast.

And totally agreed with NMS on the 'standard' argument. Nothing is standard. Everything is negotiable. And not many books are even vaguely suitable for film unless they're torn apart and laid out back to front or even inside out, which the original author will (as prodcos know) normally find difficult to do.

[avid-dreamer]

All this advice is really helpful. Thank you all! :)

[avid-dreamer]

I said thanks. Then I said:
I agree that it is essential to have an agent or lawyer in this business. I really don't care if I write the screenplay for my novel or not. I just dream of seeing it on the big screen and I kinda wrote the book so that it would be fit for adaptation. The agency that I am waiting to hear from is involved in adapting Harlequin novels into films. My novel is a gothic romance and I am hoping that the agent (assuming they want to sign me) sees the potential in my book. If it is suitable for film I want to be the one holding the movie rights and not some publisher.