Hi.
I've submitted a couple of screenplays recently to a well known distribution company who've started their own production arm.
I was wondering; how do I get paid if a distribution company want the script? Do they buy it off me outright and maybe keep me on for rewrites?
On the raindance website (
http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/index.php?aid=511) it says this:
"Distributors may read your script and agree to pay for a number of rewrites in order to turn it into a more marketable commodity for their market. When the film is finished, they will take back this money with an agreed profit."
The part about taking the money back doesn't sound too great to me. I don't understand what they mean. Are they saying Distributors will merely advance me the money? Does this mean I don't get to keep the money they give me?
Any help would be appreciated; just in case this one I've submitted to actually like my script.
Thanks
I have no idea what they're talking about.
Here is how it generally works in the real world with beginning writers.
First of all, you (and maybe this company you're quoting) seem to have your terms a bit mixed up.
A "distribution" company is, as a rule, in the business of, well -- distributing. To be precise, they're in the business of distributing finished movies, which they acquire from other people who make them.
Now, some companies -- say a big studio, may also develop, produce, *and* distribute movies -- they produce some, finance some which are produced or co-produced by others, and acquire some that have already been finished by others -- which they then distribute.
But I have a feeling that what you're talking about is a "development" company, not a distribution company.
Development companies are in the business of acquiring scripts which they then develop, go looking for financing, and then hopefully turn into finished films which they can then go looking for others to distribute (a distribution deal may also be part of the financing, it depends).
Some development companies have a lot of money. Some have very little money. Some have virtually no money.
Even those that have a lot of money, these days, don't particularly want to give you very much of it. So what they will generally do is offer to *option* your screenplay -- that is, you sign a contract for the sale of your screenplay, but they don't exercise the terms of the contract right away. Instead, you and they agree that the producers have an exclusive *option* to exercise the terms of the contract for a limited period of time -- say a year or eighteen months. And usually they will pay you for the right to that exclusive option.
In principle, that should be ten percent of the purchase price. It can be anything as little as nothing. That is, they as for a free option. They just get to have the exclusive option for nothing, during which time they will take your script everywhere they can possibly think of, try to sell it, and if they fail, they will give it back to you, completely "shopped out" -- and it will be yours, only everyone in the world will have seen it, passed on it, and you probably won't be able to do a thing with it, and you won't have been paid a dime (and probably never will be paid anything for it in the future).
Now, during that "option" period they can and most likely will do rewrites, because they want to -- okay, there are nice ways of putting this and less nice ways. This is how Robert Heinlein put it.
When they piss in it, they like the flavor better. So they want a chance to piss in it. That is, they want the opportunity to put their "creative mark" on your script. To make what was once yours, to some degree theirs.
Now, how this happens and who does it who gets paid for it goes back to the question of how much money they have. If they have very little or no money, after having convinced you to give them a free option, they will likely come back to you and convince you to do free rewrites for them.
And the song they will sing will go like this -- "We want to be able to show the best possible version of this script, to give it the best possible shot when we go out with it. So we need your help to get it to that point. And we really can't afford to pay anybody to do it. And it's just not ready, as it stands, to go out. So ---?"
So there's a good chance that you'll do the free rewrites.
Now, the other alternative is that they've got a decent amount of money. Maybe they've even paid you for the option.
But here's the sad part of the story. You're an unproven writer. Don't think that the fact that you've written the screenplay that they've optioned means that you've proven anything. It hasn't proven to them that you can do rewrites, take notes, work with producers or development people.
And once they move into the re-write phase, they want to work with people that they know and are sure about and are vetted.
So there's a very good chance, if your first-time script is actually re-written, and somebody is going to get paid -- and paid real money of the "guild-rates" type fee structure money to rewrite it, it probably won't be you doing the rewriting.
Of course, depending on who the producer is, and what your relationship with that producer is, they might hire you to do the rewrites.
And if they do -- you *do not* ever have to give that money back.
It's work for hire. They pay you for your work writing the revision or the polish and you keep the money.
That will be true whether the movie is made or not or whether the option is exercised or not (that is, whether or not they finally buy the script from you).
What you *will* have to give back, in the event that the option is exercised -- that is, if they ultimately buy the screenplay -- is the initial option fee (presuming they paid you one.)
So if the original contract agreed to pay you a hundred thousand dollars, and the original option fee was ten thousand dollars for a year -- if they ultimately exercise the option and buy the script -- you get ninety thousand dollars.
Now, very often there will be a clause for a second option period -- a second year for a second ten grand. That second ten grand is generally *not* deductable from the final payment. So if they'd paid you for a second year for another ten grand -- they'd still pay you the ninety.
But under no circumstances that I've ever heard of would fees paid to you for any rewrite work ever be deductable from that purchase price.
Hope that helps make things clearer.
NMS
