This might be a dumb and obvious question. Do you guys and gals celebrate Christmas over there
in Asia? I should know but I don't. Do you? Let me know.
This holiday is turning out to be one of the better ones in recent years. Jon and I managed to
option the script we wrote together, Above Paradise, to a production company. The option
money is low but we'll make it up on the purchase price and we haggled some other perks into
the deal.
For those of you in the dark about what an option is. There're a few ways to sell your script.
Let's say you wrote this amazing script about a white man that goes to Japan and becomes the
last Samurai. One way to sell the work is to a production company outright. That means they
purchase the script for a price and they own it…every word.
Big studios and rich production companies can afford to do that.
Or the production company can "option it". Option is like renting. They have to specify on
how long they want to rent it and how much. Generally the option is 10 percent of the purchase
price. How do you come up with a purchase price? The purchase price by WGA (Writers' Guild of
America) standards is 2.5 to 3 percent of the budget. How do you come up with a budget?
The producers or whoever is buying the script breaks the script down and figures out how much
money they need to shoot the script. Now the budget and getting enough money to shoot the movie
are two different things.
In this scenario, you set a price for the option and you have to set a price for the purchase.
The purchase price has to be in the option. This way the buyer and seller are protected.
Lots of independent producers around town want to option your script for nothing…a free option.
A literary manager told me this is illegal. Well not illegal because it happens all the time
but when no money changes hands, anyone can walk away from the deal.
Now the script is optioned, the next step for the producers is to get the money for the budget.
They set the budget at 2.5 million and have to pitch the movie to investors and beg for
money.
There're a few ways to get money for your movie and we'll talk about that in a later date. For
the investors to be interested in your movie, you have to have a few things. Investors want
to make sure they get their money back. One way is to have movie stars attached to the script.
This means they've agreed to work on your movie. You can also attach a well-known director. A
sure fire way of getting money in Hollywood is having well-known actors or directors attached
to your movie. You can have an amazing script with the best concept ever, but that's still
subjective.
On the first day of shooting, the producers have to pay you the purchase price. Only then, do
you get the money. Yes, it is a long and lonely road. If the script gets no interest and the
option runs out, the renters have to option to option it again.
There's a great story about how Clint Eastwood read a script and loved it. Really loved it. He
wanted to direct it and play the lead role but he didn't feel really to play it yet. So he
optioned the script for like TEN years until he was really. After ten years Unforgiven was
made and won loads of Oscars. Yeah, can you believe that?
Written by Charlie Cheng
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