Adaptation question and not sure if it's the right cat.

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JustinlDew

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Okay, this is a question that has been bugging me for awhile.
Say I get my book published and a movie studio wants to produce it. I get optioned, and it hit's the big screen.

What money do I get from it?

I know I get an option fee but do I get anything from ticket sales as well? Google is turning up no results for this.

Also if this is the wrong category can a mod squad move it to the right one?
 

dangerousbill

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What money do I get from it?

That's what agents do. The 15% generally pays for itself. If you have an offer to option your novel, your next stop should be at an agent's office, applying for representation. With a novel published and an option offer, no sane agent would turn it down.

Note that option does not equal movie. Only a portion of optioned novels make it onto the screen. I don't know what that portion is, 1% or 90%. But no one is going to invest in getting a treatment written and then all the legwork done until they have a lock on the novel.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Option money can be ten buck on up. It won't be much unless your book is a huge bestseller. No, you will not get anything from ticket sales.

As Dangerous Bill says, options really mean nothing except that someone has the movie rights tied up for the duration of the contract.

Much of the writing business can be handled by a smart writer, but movie rights are something you don't even want to think about without an agent, preferably a screen agent, in your corner.
 

jjdebenedictis

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If you've got your eye on the money, screenwriters make a lot more than novelists do (roughly ten times more), but that's because they sell the copyright, rather than just licensing the rights. The product is no longer theirs once it's sold.

But that simply means it's even harder to make it as a screenwriter than it is to make it as a novelist. Stiffer competition and much more merciless gatekeepers.
 

Old Hack

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The option fee doesn't give the people who own the option the right to make a movie from your book. It's a bit like a retainer, so that you can't sell the film rights for that book to anyone else so long as the option remains in place.

It's relatively common to sell options; it's far rarer to sell rights. Only when those rights are sold can anyone make that movie, and selling rights is no guarantee that a movie will be made.

As others have said, your payments would be determined by the contract you negotiate. A flat fee is, I think, far more common than a percentage of box office receipts.
 

jeffo20

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Bigshot Hollywood Guy: "We're prepared to offer you a cameo in the film, and--"

Kramer: "I'll take it!"

Seconding, and thirding, what others have said. If you've got interest and an agent, let the agent handle it. If you've got interest and no agent, get one.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Whatever else you do, make sure you get the right to use stills from the film on the cover of the reprint edition of your book so your publisher can do a tie-in edition.

When your agent is negotiating with a publisher, they may get escalators built into your contract; $10,000 if your book gets made into a film, payable on the first day of principal photography, $30,000 if the film made from your book is in the top ten on its opening weekend, or whatever else seems good to both of you.

But, as other people have said, from the movie people you get what the contract says (or as much less as the Killer Accountants of Hollywood can get away with). And you'd be silly to walk into that tiger cage without an agent.
 

Jamesaritchie

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If you've got your eye on the money, screenwriters make a lot more than novelists do (roughly ten times more), but that's because they sell the copyright, rather than just licensing the rights. The product is no longer theirs once it's sold.

But that simply means it's even harder to make it as a screenwriter than it is to make it as a novelist. Stiffer competition and much more merciless gatekeepers.

I don't know where you get that number, but it's completely meaningless, and screenwriters do not get paid more because they sell the copyright.
 

jjdebenedictis

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I don't know where you get that number, but it's completely meaningless, and screenwriters do not get paid more because they sell the copyright.
The average advance on a book is very roughly $10,000. The Screenwriters Guilds says the minimum that Hollywood can pay a screenwriter is a bit over $100,000.

That's a factor of ten.

And if someone wants to take my copyright from me, yes my agent better damned well get me more money for that.
 

Jamesaritchie

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The average advance on a book is very roughly $10,000. The Screenwriters Guilds says the minimum that Hollywood can pay a screenwriter is a bit over $100,000.

That's a factor of ten.

And if someone wants to take my copyright from me, yes my agent better damned well get me more money for that.

Yes, but averages mean absolutely nothing. Screenwriters don't earn royalties, but novelists do. Even without royalties, no one ever earned a penny because of what the average writer earns.

First, you can write and sell all sorts of screenplays that do not fall under the guild minimum. Second, last time I checked, the guild minimum through 2014 is, with treatment, a bit over $66,000 and there's no guarantee at all that you will get more than a part of this. Anyway, the treatment itself earns a minimum of $29,457, the first draft of the screenplay gets,$25,601 minimum, and the final draft gets $9,955 minimum. The writer may not get to do all three parts.

It is, in fact, quite common for one writer to do the treatment, another to do the first draft, and yet another, or a team or others, to do the final draft. Teams and rewrites are big in Hollywood.

And, of course, these days the screenplay is often written, and the movie well under way, before Hollywood even gets involved.

A lot of other factors also work into this, and you may sell more than one screenplay, and maybe a big bunch of them, before you quality for the guild minimum. I know one screenwriter who sold an original screenplay a couple of years ago for a flat $100, and another who sold two for a thousand bucks each.

And who's going to pay you a hundred grand for a movie that has a total budget of two hundred grand, or less?

And copyright has nothing to do with it. Copyright with screenplays has nothing in common with copyright for novels, short stories, or anything else. Just what would you do with the copyright, if they let you keep it?

You don't sell the screenplay until after someone intends to make a movie out of it, and neither you, nor anyone else, is going to make the exact same movie using the exact same screenplay, ever again. It isn't a matter of selling copyright, it's a mater of that screenplay being useless after it's turned into a movie.

Until a movie is in the works, you simply sell an option, and with the option, you still have copyright.
 

djf881

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When your book is optioned for film, you get a payment in exchange for giving somebody an exclusive right to make a film of your book. There are other things that can also trigger payment. If the option expires, and they renew it, you get paid again. If the film is actually produced, you get paid a lot. You may also get points on net profits, but i understand it's rare to see anything from that. All of these numbers are dependent on the terms you agree to. These contracts are very elaborate and heavily negotiated.

If your book is made into a movie, you will most likely be paid more than the screenwriter hired to adapt it, especially if you factor in the surge in book sales and prominence that come with your book being turned into a movie.
 

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When your book is optioned for film, you get a payment in exchange for giving somebody an exclusive right to make a film of your book.

That's not quite right.

Buying an option does not give the purchaser the rights to make a film of your book: it just stops anyone else from buying the rights to that book while the option remains in place.
 

Cyia

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I am neither an agent nor a lawyer, so this isn't advice in that capacity. It's only my understanding of it.


  1. write book
  2. sell book
  3. attract attention of producer, director, or studio
  4. if it's one of the first 2, they'll take it to their home studio to see if there's interest. If yes, they'll make an offer, if no, the deal can either die there or go out to other studios.
  5. if there's an offer -- YOU GET A LAWYER, an entertainment lawyer to be precise because these contracts are their own beast.
  6. the lawyer goes through the offer to make sure everything is added that should be added and excised that should be excised (sometimes what's not said is as important as what is said) They try and get you the best deal possible, with clauses to cover the length of options and merchandise and the ability to take the book elsewhere if something happens that the film isn't made within a certain amount of time. (You can't sell the rights anywhere else while they're under option.)
  7. hopefully, the offer gets to the point that all parties agree on it
  8. you get paid - usually, this is an option rather than the full amount, and a percentage of the full offer. (If they offer $100,000, you might get $10,000 up front, or you might get $1000. It depends on what's agreed upon in the contract.)
  9. hopefully, it's full steam ahead and a movie goes into production, in which case, you get the rest of your money (less agent and attorney), but if the option runs out, the studio can pick it up again by paying you another option to extend it.
  10. ultimately what you get out of the deal will depend on what your lawyer can get them to put into the contract to benefit you.
 

djf881

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That's not quite right.

Buying an option does not give the purchaser the rights to make a film of your book: it just stops anyone else from buying the rights to that book while the option remains in place.

My description simplified the way an option contract functions, but yours is wrong and false.

An option contract is a right to buy something for a specific price. A film option works like a stock option or any other option contract.

When you enter into an option contract, you agree to sell the rights to your book for a certain amount. The purchaser, however, does not agree to pay that price to buy the rights.

Instead, they pay a smaller sum of money for an exclusive option to buy the rights at that price for an agreed-upon period. At any time during the option period, they may exercise their right to buy the film rights, with no further negotiation, by paying that price.

They don't have pay your full price to actually buy the film rights unless they make the film, but once they have an option, they can begin setting up the production with full confidence that they control the rights, because you have bound yourself to the terms of sale, and they can accept those terms and buy the rights at any time during the option period.

You are implying, falsely, that you can sell someone the option to buy film rights and then refuse to sell them the rights.
 

Old Hack

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My description simplified the way an option contract functions, but yours is wrong and false.

An option contract is a right to buy something for a specific price. A film option works like a stock option or any other option contract.

When you enter into an option contract, you agree to sell the rights to your book for a certain amount. The purchaser, however, does not agree to pay that price to buy the rights.

Instead, they pay a smaller sum of money for an exclusive option to buy the rights at that price for an agreed-upon period. At any time during the option period, they may exercise their right to buy the film rights, with no further negotiation, by paying that price.

They don't have pay your full price to actually buy the film rights unless they make the film, but once they have an option, they can begin setting up the production with full confidence that they control the rights, because you have bound yourself to the terms of sale, and they can accept those terms and buy the rights at any time during the option period.

You are implying, falsely, that you can sell someone the option to buy film rights and then refuse to sell them the rights.

I was responding to this comment of yours:

When your book is optioned for film, you get a payment in exchange for giving somebody an exclusive right to make a film of your book.

To that I replied,

Buying an option does not give the purchaser the rights to make a film of your book: it just stops anyone else from buying the rights to that book while the option remains in place.

Selling an option does not give anyone an exclusive right to make a film of your book. It gives them an exclusive option to buy the rights concerned.

Further, it is not always the case that "when you enter into an option contract, you agree to sell the rights to your book for a certain amount". That might be so for the options that you've seen, but I've negotiated contracts for options that only provide the purchaser the sole right to negotiate with me for the film rights to the books in question; and I've sold options in which that is the case.
 

Mac H.

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I know I get an option fee but do I get anything from ticket sales as well?
You will probably get:

1. The option fee
2. The payment for them exercising the option.

If you get something from 'ticket sales' - it is never phrased that way, as the people who you are signing the contract with (the producers) aren't the same people who collect money from ticket sales (the exhibitors).

Instead, you could possibly negotiate backend 'points' - which is based on how much the production company receives from the distributors, which is a cut-down amount of what the exhibitors (the cinemas) get.

In the real world, the backend points are often called 'monkey points' because they are effectively worth nothing. That's because if a production company or studio has 10 projects and yours has a higher cost due to your points deal, then the sale might end up being structured to minimise your points.

For example - if the studio has 10 films in its library and licenses the TV rights as a bundle of 10 in one deal ... should your film be allocated 1/10th of the total income? What if one of them was a hit and the others weren't? How should the income from each film count?

As another datapoint, according to the writer (Terry Rossio) the action figure of Capt Jack Sparrow (for the massive 'Pirates' film) was deemed to be a 'generic pirate' for the sake of accounting - which avoided paying a licensing royalty to the writers.

Good luck,

Mac
 

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For more information on creative Hollywood accounting, take a look at Buchwald v. Paramount.

In a nutshell, humorist Art Buchwald sued Paramount Studios over Coming to America for breach of contract. He'd optioned a screen treatment and pitched it as a possible vehicle for Eddie Murphy. Paramount let it languish in Development Hell and the option lapsed. Buchwald was in negotiations with Warner Bros. for the project when Coming to America starring Eddie Murphy was released. Buchwald sued and won, yet Paramount balked at the payment. They claimed that even though the movie made $288 million at the box office, it "made no net profit".
 

Cyia

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For more information on creative Hollywood accounting, take a look at Buchwald v. Paramount.

In a nutshell, humorist Art Buchwald sued Paramount Studios over Coming to America for breach of contract. He'd optioned a screen treatment and pitched it as a possible vehicle for Eddie Murphy. Paramount let it languish in Development Hell and the option lapsed. Buchwald was in negotiations with Warner Bros. for the project when Coming to America starring Eddie Murphy was released. Buchwald sued and won, yet Paramount balked at the payment. They claimed that even though the movie made $288 million at the box office, it "made no net profit".


That's nothing. Harry Potter supposedly lost money because of the distribution fees.

http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/stu...ause-of-warner-bros-phony-baloney-accounting/

Though the film grossed $938.2 million worldwide, the accounting statement below conveys that the film is still over $167 million in the red.

Net profit share is basically worthless on film projects; it's too easy to make sure there is no net profit.
 
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