Writing Movies For Fun And Profit! (6 page)

If your last movie actually
did
get made:

We gotta ask—DID IT FLOP? IF YOUR FIRST MOVIE FLOPPED … sorry, you might not ever work again. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t your fault: if the director screwed it up and the movie didn’t resemble your script at all. It doesn’t matter. You might be done. Hope you finished college and learned a skill. Tough racket, huh?

If your last movie made its money back:

You’ll get more than a 10 percent bump. Maybe 30 percent. Maybe more. Depending on how your last movie did.

If your last movie made a fortune:

Hear that BEEP BEEP BEEP? That’s the MONEY TRUCK backing up to your house! Screenplays written by proven moneymaking screenwriters regularly sell for over a million bucks. Usually in the $1 million to $3 million range. There are about twenty guys who get paid that, and higher.

WARNING: Seven figures may seem like a lot of money. Because it is. But you’ll take home only about a fourth of that. No joke—for every buck you get paid, you’ll actually SEE about 25 cents.

But … one-fourth of seven figures is still pretty damn good. It ain’t Stiller money, but it beats working at Carl’s Jr. Here’s who-all gets a chunk:

AGENT: Usually 10%.

MANAGER: Usually 10%.

LAWYER: Could be 5%. Could be more. Could be less. Some charge by the hour.

BUSINESS MANAGER: Could be 5%. Could be more. Could be less. Some charge by the hour.

WRITERS GUILD DUES: 1.5%.

FEDERAL INCOME TAX: We’re in a very high bracket (and hopefully you will be too).

CALIFORNIA STATE INCOME TAX: Ugh. Forget it, this state is a MESS. It’s BROKE. And who has to pay? Us—the rich people. Life is so unfair.

Other Things That Your Reps Will Negotiate For

BACK END: A percentage of the profits. You won’t get that. We don’t care who you are—if you’re reading this book, odds are about one in a gajillion that you’re going to get a percentage of the profits. If you DO get that—call us, and tell us how you pulled it off. (Don’t call us. E-mail our agent at CAA, Scott Greenberg.)

A PRODUCER or DIRECTOR DEAL: If you want to produce, that’s a whole other book. People often ask us, “What
IS
a producer, anyway?” Producers might do anything—from being involved in every single creative decision in a movie to doing NOTHING at all, just collecting a fee. But they were involved in some early aspect of the development of the movie. Maybe it was their idea and they hired the writer. Maybe they found the script and took it to the studio.

And if you want to direct … that’s
also
way too much to fit into this book. We’d recommend watching
Living in Oblivion, Hearts of Darkness
, and
Lost in La Mancha
. If you STILL want to direct after those … more power to ya.

RETAINING SEPARATED RIGHTS TO YOUR MATERIAL: So that they have to come to you AND PAY YOU if they make the movie into a TV show or lunch boxes. You will get these only if the Writers Guild determines that you get a WRITTEN BY credit on an original screenplay. This kinda shit gets
really
complicated and has its own chapter (See
Chapter 21
, “Credit$.”) As a member of the Writers Guild, you’ll get paid when they do sequels, books, and video
games, anyway—but not NEARLY as much as you would if you had SEPARATED RIGHTS. And you won’t get creative control.

CREDIT BONUS: Extra money if you receive full or partial credit on the final film. (See
chapter 21
.)

LAST-WRITER BONUS: Extra money if you are the last writer—meaning either that you were the ONLY writer who worked on the script or, after they hired twenty other writers to do changes, they rehired YOU at the end of the process to fix what all those other douchebags did to your script. This happens
ALL THE TIME
.

BOX-OFFICE BONUS: Extra money if your movie hits certain prenegotiated amounts at the box office—$100 million, $150 million, etc. WOO-HOO! Buy a boat!

PASSIVE PAYMENTS ON REMAKES, SEQUELS, AND THE LIKE: The Writers Guild’s rules say that if they make a sequel of your movie, you AUTOMATICALLY get paid 50 percent of your writing fee (the one you got paid for the first movie) for the sequel—WHETHER YOU WORK ON IT OR NOT!

So if you got paid a million bucks to write
Super Banana
—you’re gonna get a $500,000 check when they make
Super Banana II: Back in the Saddle
, and
you don’t even have to lift a finger
. Neat, huh? And your reps can prenegotiate for MORE than 50 percent. Obviously you get paid MORE if you
do
write it. You always get paid more for sequels. Sequels mean the first one did really well … or at least well enough to make a sequel.

You also get paid if they remake your movie or make your movie into a TV show, but the amount varies. The Guild has standard minimums, and they’re not bad.

We’ll be honest—a lot of this stuff is stuff YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GET FOR A LONG, LONG TIME.
Until your movies have made about a billion bucks at the box office. The main thing you’ll negotiate for is money.

Okay … whew. Your reps and the studio have to agree on all that stuff—it sometimes takes weeks.

Then, after the deal is closed:

You’ll get a contract in the mail, or you’ll go to your rep’s office and sign it. Your reps will call and say, “We’re all feeling really good about the deal.” The studio’ll call and say, “We’re all really excited.”

We always send our reps a little gift—our agent, our manager, our lawyer, and any producers involved.

Tom usually sends red wine. Ben usually sends sake.

Okay, you signed the deal. Now what?

You don’t start writing right away. Usually you have ONE MORE MEETING with the studio. You shake hands, they give you a Diet Coke or bottled water, they say how happy they are to be in business with you, and then—they’ll usually GIVE YOU A FEW NOTES.

DON’T PANIC
: they very rarely pull a bait and switch (“I know you sold us an intergalactic heist comedy, we want you to write a period drama about Mao Tse-tung”). We’re sure that’s possible … but we’ve never heard of that happening.

Those sorts of cockamamie notes usually come later, after you’ve given the studio the first draft. (See
Chapter 10
, “Why Does Almost Every Studio Movie SUCK Donkey Balls?”)

When you go in for this meeting, don’t forget: ACT REALLY GRATEFUL AND EXCITED. Hopefully, you’ll actually
be
really grateful and excited. We say this only, because we heard a story of a guy who decided he was hot shit now that he was a professional screenwriter. He went in and argued with the executive who JUST BOUGHT HIS MOVIE about some minor point—and the studio yanked the deal right out from under him. Nothing was signed yet. (Oops. Sor-ry.)

Now
you start writing. Unless you sold a spec. Then you start REWRITING, based on the studio’s notes. And unless you’re Quentin Tarantino, you’re gettin’ NOTES, pal.

How long do you have to WRITE THE SCRIPT?

There are standard time periods you have to write a script; they’re the same for every project:

To write the first draft: ten weeks.

When you turn it in, the studio has six weeks to read it

and get back to you with their notes.

After they give you notes: you have six weeks to do those revisions.

They’ll start calling you about week seven and asking you “How’s it coming?” and “When do you think you’ll be turning it in?” Spyglass Films starts this on about day two. But keep in mind, if they’re bugging you for the script—THEY’RE STILL ENGAGED IN THE PROCESS. Don’t worry when people are bugging you for the finished script. Worry when people
AREN’T
bugging you for the script. You or your project may have cooled off. Don’t worry. You have ten weeks. But turning it in a little early is ALWAYS a good thing. Eight weeks is good. They’ll know you didn’t rush, but they’re still getting it early.

Most movie deals
used
to be composed of a FIRST DRAFT and ONE SET OF REVISIONS. That means they CAN’T fire you after your first draft. They have to at least give you notes and let you TRY to “fix” the script, AKA do their notes. (See
Chapter 10
, “Why Does Almost Every Studio Movie SUCK Donkey Balls?”)

But now, with the economy in the toilet
(Thanks a lot, [
insert name of current president here!
]
, most studios (especially Paramount) are only doing ONE-STEP DEALS. You get paid, you write a draft, you turn it in—that’s it. The studios are saving a fortune that way.

Some deals also have an OPTIONAL POLISH. That means they give you another set of notes (after you’ve done your SECOND draft) and you have
TWO TO FOUR WEEKS
to do them. But just because it’s a “polish,” that DOES NOT mean it will be less work. Sometimes doing their notes will mean completely throwing out 50 percent, 75 percent, even 100 percent of the script and rebuilding it from the ashes. Their note may be: “We need to change the characters and the setting and the story”—and they’ll still call it a POLISH and give you
TWO
weeks.

That’s why you HAVE to be very good, very fast, and very disciplined. Sometimes it’s crunch time.

Oh, and the six weeks they contractually have to get their notes back
to you? They breach that ALL THE TIME. You’re supposed to get paid a penalty when they do that. You won’t get that penalty. Ever.

We saved the best news for last:

The best thing about selling your first script:

NOW YOU’RE IN THE DOOR!

Hollywood is a town that’s TERRIFIED of sticking its neck out for any unproven commodity.

NO ONE wants to be the FIRST ONE to hire a new young writer. Getting your first job in Hollywood is a MILLION times harder than getting your SECOND. (Unless your first movie tanks—but worry about that later.) After you’ve written a script for a studio, you’re “in the club.” Your agents and reps will be sending you scripts to rewrite and setting up meetings to hear the studios’ ideas all the time. Your phone will ring constantly. Until you f@&k up.

Tonight, go celebrate. Go out for sushi, smoke a bowl, and pop a good movie into the Blu-ray.

Now that you’re a writer—you can write it all off
.
*

You are now only ten short steps away from turning in your script!

1. Make sure your script is the right length.

2. Make sure your script is formatted correctly.

3. Make sure your title page is correct, has the right date, and is also formatted correctly.

4. Spell-check your script.

5. Fact-check your script.

6. Clear your revision marks, and make a clean PDF of your script.

7. Clearly mark your OFFICIAL draft and save it someplace where YOU can find it. AND BACK IT UP.

8. Register your script with the WGA.

9. Double-check—have you been paid yet?

10. Make sure you’re turning it in to the right person or people—AND TURN IT IN.

1. Make sure your script is the right length.

If it’s a comedy, it should be about 100, 110 pages. A little longer if it’s a drama. We’ll repeat that. It’s important:

The correct length of a script is: around 100, 110 pages for a comedy, a little more for a drama
.

Is it really so specific?
YES
.
YES, IT IS
.
We’ve handed in scripts to studio people and seen them WEIGH the script with their hand to see if it’s the right length.

To the studio, script length equals how much the movie will cost. (Most movies we write are about a million bucks per page.) And most scripts are usually about a MINUTE of screen time per page.

Turning in a script that’s the right length shows that you know what you’re doing. If your script is WAY too long, you might as well have turned in a dead fish wrapped around a turd. It’s as good as dead.

Your buddy may tell you that if a script is REALLY good, it can be longer. Yes, a lot of screenplays are longer. But—most
published
screenplays you can buy online are not the FIRST DRAFT of that script. They’re the SHOOTING DRAFT. And scripts get longer as you get notes.

We turn in our first drafts at around 100, 110 pages. And we’ve had
lots
of movies made. And they’ve made $1.5 BILLION at the box office. Your buddy, who wrote the 2 70-page script—how much money has his movies made? If your buddy is James Cameron, we defer. But bear in mind,
Avatar
and
Titanic
were three hours—but his first scripts, the ones that got him started, like
The Terminator
? Probably shorter.
Terminator
runs only 107 minutes.

if your script is too long—cut it down.

•
Cut unnecessary scenes
. If your script is 130 pages, we promise you, there are some unnecessary scenes. And any scene that doesn’t move the plot forward is unnecessary.

•
Trim any lengthy descriptive action paragraphs
. They are boring and hard to read.