small fry question about film rights

avid-dreamer said:

Hi people! I have a question. What is the average range of money an author can earn from selling film rights to producers to make a movie for the big screen. *note: the author has an agent

Thanks all!!!

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Don't know that there is an average. A small production company might option a book (so that no other company can produce it) for as little as a few hundred bucks, while a major company could pay thousands or even hundreds of thousands. The thing is, plenty of books are optioned, but few of them make it to film. The option runs out, and the author gets to keep the "earnest money" and possibly option the book to another company.

The option agreement is always for a specific amount of time, months usually, and spells out what the author will be paid if the book actually is produced for the big or small screen.

But, as I said ... Many are called, but damned few are chosen.

I don't know the answer to that either but if a contract has been signed or will be soon, congrats! I'm trying to find something for my first book. It would be awsome on the big screen with all that blood lol. I love horror movies lol.

I hope things go great for ya and it works out the way you hoped.

Amber

There is no average, and there's getting to be less of an average all the time.

The reason is, Hollywood used to be the domain of big studios, which produced everything. They budgeted movies as they saw fit.

Now the studios often produce movies from independent producers, or "indies," as they're called. Indies don't have the kind of bucks to throw around that studios did, and often start out with essentially nothing. In that case, they'll ask for a free option (with the final purchase price determined), so they can show your book around to investors without fear that a potential investor will contact you and steal the project from them.

The full price for movie rights can be anything from $50K (very small) to six figures, (possibly more, but you'd have to be on the NYT bestseller list for that kind of dough).

If someone asks for a free option, make sure you're happy with the full rights price (the amount they'll pay you if/when they get their finances together), get everything in writing, and don't give an option longer than one year. If, at the end of the year, they want to extend the option, make 'em pay something, at least $10k.

When someone buys an option, say $10,000 for one year, that money is applied to the final purchase price. But when they renew an option, the price for renewal is NOT applied to the final purchase price.

In other words, let's say I want to buy a movie option on your book. I offer you $10K for a one-year option, against a $100K final price. If I get my ducks in a row in that year, I owe you 90K for the full price (100K minus the 10K for the option).

If, however, I don't get my act together but want to hold onto the option, I can offer you another 10K for another year, but when I buy the full rights, I still owe you 90K, because renewals aren't applied to the purchase price.

All that should be in writing, unless it's being negotiated by a reputable agent (who'll get it in writing).

Oh, and don't worry about collecting the final price. The law states flatly that all rights money must be paid IN FULL before principle filming can begin.

avid-dreamer said:

But that is nothing to me...I reaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllly dream of seeing my novel on the big screen.
What do u guys think? Is there even a remote possibility for that to happen for a new writer? (this is my first novel)

Thanks again.

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Realistically? Not a very good possibility. Romances of any kind are a hard sell to Hollywood, largely because they tend to not be among the big money-makers.

By the way, you do realize, I hope, that "seeing" your novel on the screen isn't quite so cut and dried as all that? Unless you write, produce, direct, and have a hand in the casting, you won't be seeing your novel. You'll be seeing someone else's -- several someone elses' -- version of your novel. It could, in fact, be completely rewritten from your story, characters changed, plot details or whole plotlines dropped or altered.

Take a look at most of the movies-from-novels out there, and it's painfully obvious that a novel and a movie are two wildly different animals.

Just a warning in case it ever does happen for you.

avid-dreamer said:

ONe can only keep dreaming!

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That, plus working hard.

avid-dreamer said:

Wow, u guys gave me some great info!! And no, I don't have anything lined up, but I am aspiring after it. I have an agent and in their agency they have a film agent. I asked my agent about the possibility of getting my novel (a gothic romance) made into a film. She said it would depend on how well it does in the market.
She thinks my story is unique and exciting (I kinda wrote it so it would be easy to adapt into a film) , so much so that she wants a series of 3. So I have 2 more novels to write. But that is nothing to me...I reaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllly dream of seeing my novel on the big screen.
What do u guys think? Is there even a remote possibility for that to happen for a new writer? (this is my first novel)

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Don't see why not. My first novel was made into a movie, though I wasn't all that thrilled when I saw it...

One thing that caught my attention, though; your agent said a movie possibility depends how the book does..? As far as I know, most of the time when a book is made into a movie, the movie rights are sold before the book is published. Movie people have their own ideas (not always right) about what makes a good movie, and generally don't base their decisions on book sales, which is why so many bestsellers aren't made into movies (and look what is being made into movies -- graphic novels). You might want to talk to your agent about why they aren't shopping it around H'wood.

Oh, yes, and remember, if you do sell the movie rights, you surrender any and all control over the story. The buyer buys the right to change anything at all, and you have no say whatsoever. So the movie you imagine might not resemble a movie that's actually made.

Let me add that if you're determined to see it on the big screen, you should look into writing the screenplay yourself. That way, you have control over it, and if you sell the screenplay, you'll make a lot more money on the residuals than you will selling movie rights to your novel.

Options

And remember that even options come in many flavors. My options do not have a purchase price listed. This will be negotiated when and if the movie is made. And my option money does not apply to the purchase price.

'By the way, you do realize, I hope, that "seeing" your novel on the screen isn't quite so cut and dried as all that? Unless you write, produce, direct, and have a hand in the casting, you won't be seeing your novel. You'll be seeing someone else's -- several someone elses' -- version of your novel. It could, in fact, be completely rewritten from your story, characters changed, plot details or whole plotlines dropped or altered.' ~ righteo. someone has to take that book and make a screenplay out of it first, and make it fit into some kind of manageable thing. i remember that stephen king's 'the stand,' even given a massive mini-series, still had to combine characters. then it becomes other peoples' vision, from the director to how the actor wants to portray the character to f/x departments to even how the props and costume people see things. the cinematographer has their say and then it, hopefully, gets all arranged by a great editor, which is an artform in itself. you? you've got nothing to do with it. try to get yourself invited to the set, though, lol.

hey, dream big. revel in the possibilities. reality sucks, and it'll bite your butt eventually. then again, there's always that one strange case where it all works perfectly.

'I checked out that film agent's personal website and she does accept queries. But do u guys think it would be frowned upon if I go behind my agent's back and query the film agent myself?' ~ indeed, i think it would frowned upon. were i an agent, i wouldn't be happy about it, would you? i don't think there'd be a problem if you had a script, too, as long as you gave her first crack at selling it. if you sold the script to the story without the agent's help, that's less commission she'd be making on the sale of the book because she wouldn't be able to sell the film rights, too. in fact, if you sold the script to the story before i sold the book, i'd drop you in the same phone call along. you'd be history as far as i was concerned. i wouldn't tolerate your sneaking around, i wouldn't care if it made the book easier to sell or not. but, since there was a contract, i would be obligated to sell it, which i'd do so grudingly. i'm funny about things when people go behind my back and screw me out of money. ask your agent if she minds you doing this: it's more than just a courtesy, you could set yourself up for some legal action against you. i mean, you *are* breaching the contract by nullifying the agent's right to sell the film rights, eh? it's not something i'd play around with unless i consulted my agent first.

first thing, you'd have to retain the film rights when you sold the publishing rights to a publisher. once you sell the film rights to the publisher, it's out of your hands. my question is: if the publisher owns the film rights, and say they option those rights out to a production company, does the writer see any of that money or does it all belong to the publisher? second question: what's more likely to be optioned, a script or film rights via the publishing company?

to give you a bad example in regards to your original question. i used to have an online buddy who had a script of his optioned by some disney company (seems his friend's dad was a big-shot at disney). i want to say he got $20K for a two-year option, but don't quote me on that. that was roughly seven years ago. that kind of reinforces (sort of) that $10k/yr. option set-up wayne (i think) suggested. so maybe that's something you can hope for in an amazingly broad expectation?

personally, i would do a script on it. that way, what story i wanted is there and not picked over by someone else. not that it wouldn't be seriously altered, but i think you'd have a better chance getting your story done the way you envision it.

then again, i dunno. i want to do scripts, but mine are mostly period-pieces which, the last time i looked, aren't exactly in favour. they don't do well at the box office usually, so they're often starring big-name actors. honestly, how many saw 'cassanova' with heath ledger or 'antoinette' with that girl from spider-man? movies are a gamble anyway, and there are obvious exceptions, but since period pieces can be on the expensive side (i'm guessing), i imagine there's some serious cost analysis with those, much more than a cheap horror film (which is my understanding has the best return on investment). what it boils down to is i really would love to write about the borgia's, but without any clout and given the idea that that kind of movie isn't bound to be more than a prestige picture, were i so lucky (that's me dreaming), i'm probably better off putting my efforts elsewhere and like you hope that the book is made into a movie instead.

anyone here interested in seeing a movie about alister crowley? didn't think so. how about if i put some fictional spin on it, like in 'shakespeare in love'? no? damnit!

okay, how's this: two time-travellers go back in time and rescue elvis right before he dies. he's a government agent, after all, sworn in by nixon. anyway, they take elvis back into the future and get his ass in shape so he can battle hitler, who's found the holy grail and is putting together an invasion force to attack earth. it ends with elvis doing a concert, pulling together all the greats from the day like hendrix and joplin.

which one are you going to make into a movie? assuming, of course, you were head of a production company and heavily medicated, unable to make rational financial decisions. the period piece about a guy few people have ever heard of, or the one with a pop icon, lots of explosions and loud music with a basset hound as a sidekick? that's assuming, too, that terrorist attacks have destroyed every single script available and those are the only two left. (sci-fi channel folk don't despair about a lack of scripts: sci-fi channel original movies don't use scripts, it slows the process down. they point to a location on a map and that's where they set up shop. then they pull out random bits of information written on scrap pieces of paper from a hat. 'fifty foot....' 'mummy.' 'flying...' 'albino...' 'alligator.' 'spaceship...' 'vampire...' 'coolio.' it's that easy.)

avid-dreamer said:

I was also having a thought:

I checked out that film agent's personal website and she does accept queries. But do u guys think it would be frowned upon if I go behind my agent's back and query the film agent myself?

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I would say don't do it.

Look, you're starting out in a business -- let's talk publishing, never mind the insanity of Hollywood -- in which right-out-of-the-box successes are RARE. Seriously rare. Something like only one or two percent of the PUBLISHED writers in this country can even make a decent living by writing alone.

Sure, you can have a killer idea, a killer novel, and the killer luck necessary for instant success. Right place, right time, right agent, all the stars can be aligned, yada yada.

But the reality is that as hard as it is to get an agent, the right agent, it's a hundred times harder to sell that first book. And even when you sell it, the odds for success remain stacked against you. Get a bad package, a weird title and/or cover design, and nobody's going to pluck a name they don't recognize off the shelves. First book doesn't fly, the second book isn't likely to either. (One reason that a high percentage of published novelists in this country have a career that lasts only two books.)

It's nice to dream, really. And you might be one of the "lucky" ones who achieves success with that first book. But you're getting way ahead of yourself by fretting about film rights with a book that is an unproven commodity.

Of course you love your book. We all do. But every factor that will determine its success beyond the writing of the best book you can write is, in reality, totally beyond your control.

I've seen new writers crash badly because they hoped for so much, expected so much, only to be disappointed and depressed when even "success" didn't live up to their expectations.

If you want to bypass publication and try your luck with a screenplay, have at it. But, IMO, you need to focus. Book or script. You've got an agent; now get a sale. In my experience, the only unpublished novels that sell to Hollywood do so only after they have also sold to New York -- or else they've been written by proven talent.

You sign on with an agent for his or her expertise; either listen to and trust that agent, or find another one you can trust.

And get busy writing the next book, and the one after that, because in both New York and Hollywood, even being on the "fast track" to production invariably means months, if not years, of waiting to see your work out there.

My opinion.

i tend to agree with cat, here ~ novel or script. theoretically, you can have the book published and be the screenwriter, too. but, if you pay attention to movie credits in the beginning of the movie, you'll find that if there was a book or story written, the screenwriter is usually someone different.

The first thing I thought as I was reading through everything here was that you're getting WAYY ahead of yourself...

...but then I remembered that I have the entire film cast lined up for the movie version of the novel that I've barely started writing


Just take things slow, and listen to pretty much everything CheshireCat and others have said =)