- Back in the 1980s, a screenwriter could make some meaningful money by optioning a script. It worked this way. A producer optioned your script, which meant that he purchased the right to "own it" for a year, during which he'd try to put together a package to get it funded. The standard option was 10% of the purchase price, and the purchase price was 1-5% of the film's proposed budget. So say your script was budgeted at $10 million. You'd be expected to make $100,000 or more, and your option would be $10,000 or more. Serious money, even today. If you were prolific and optioned a lot of scripts, you could make a living. I did for a while. After the year, if nothing happened, the rights returned to you -- and you could option it to someone else! I once optioned a script to three different producers.
- But everything began to change as more and more screenplays got written. It became a buyers' market. Producers got wise and tried a new tactic -- called "the grace option," this threw the 10% standard out the window and replaced it with as little as possible. For example, a couple years ago, I optioned a script for $100 that, twenty years ago, I could have optioned for about 5 grand. That's how much the market has changed to the detriment of screenwriters. Of course, you don't have to accept these conditions. You can write novels instead. But if you are screenwriting, these are the rules of the game.
- From 10% to nothing -- what's next? Pay them instead! I don't believe it. Well, I guess I do. It just really pisses me off. The offer this fellow told me about was this: he would pay them $350 and they would do what producers do anyway, try to make it happen. But now the screenwriter is being asked to pay for this "service." Jesus H. Christ.
I told him to tell the guy he had it backwards and to make him an offer.
1 comment:
Yup. That's why I got out of screenwriting. Now I do novels.
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