How much can you earn with your first deal?

[elviro]

In Spain, where I live, if it's the first script you sell they can offer you about 25,000 €, something like 31,800 $. Considering that people in Spain usually earn about 12,000 €/year (15,300 $), it's not very good, but still it's something.

After that, you should get some money if lots of people go and see the movie, but you should't make yourself rich with that portion.

How are things out there?

Please perform $/€ conversions for an user-friendly thread. ;)

[English Dave]

Whatever you can screw out of them is the honest answer.

Anything from 1 to a million Euros. There is no ceiling on first deals just because they are first deals. It depends on who is interested and what the heat is.

[Mike The Mover]

If you're interested in what writers in America make, look at the WGA Schedule of Minimums. http://wga.org/subpage_writersresources.aspx?id=68

Of course, this probably doesn't apply to all cases. I very much doubt anybody who has sold a screenplay is going to discuss it here.

[icerose]

Depends on the factors. Are you dealing with an indie or a big studio, do you have an agent watching your back or are you a sheep surrounded by a circle of wolves who will happily sheer you of everything and leave you thinking you are getting a good deal.

Since first deals are more getting your foot in the door, sometimes they are 0 dollars, sometimes they are ten sometimes they are a million. It depends on the writer, connections, studio, film budget, and so on and so forth. There is no quick and easy answer, everyone's mileage will vary.

[Goodwriterguy]

Depends on the factors. Are you dealing with an indie or a big studio, do you have an agent watching your back or are you a sheep surrounded by a circle of wolves who will happily sheer you of everything and leave you thinking you are getting a good deal.

Since first deals are more getting your foot in the door, sometimes they are 0 dollars, sometimes they are ten sometimes they are a million. It depends on the writer, connections, studio, film budget, and so on and so forth. There is no quick and easy answer, everyone's mileage will vary.
While this is all true enough it's probably important to distinguish between the two basic kinds of script sales, those to sig producers and those to non-sigs. A sig producer must treat a writer in accord with the conditions and rules set forth in the WGA's Minimum basic Agreement (which is the contract a producer signs to become a "sig" producer). That contract specifies a minimum payment which must be met for a given type of work, e.g., a feature screenplay, a feature treatment, a teleplay, a radio drama, and the scheduling of the payment ... its increments and the events they are tied to. At the moment, I think the minimum payment for a feature script is around $90 or $100K.

A non-sig producer may pay whatever they can negotiate for literary work, and as you note, this can vary all over the map, from $2,500 to six figures.

Clearly, a writer is way ahead of the game if they deal with a sig producer; at the same time, writers sell to non-sigs all the time and make whatever deals they can manage to make.

No writer should ever attempt to negotiate their deal by themselves, whether they're dealing with a sig or a non-sig. They should have an agent in the mix and an entertainment industry lawyer on hand for the wheeling and dealing.

Being a "first timer" is always a factor in the calculus when it is the case, but it isn't the only factor involved. The quality of the material is actually quite more important, and a first timer should always be prepared to point this out.

[English Dave]

Being a "first timer" is always a factor in the calculus when it is the case, but it isn't the only factor involved. The quality of the material is actually quite more important, and a first timer should always be prepared to point this out.

It's all about the heat. First time or fourth time. No heat - take what you can get, lot'sa heat get someone to screw them.

[elviro]

In Spain, after the first deal, everything else is based on your fame and experience. The more of your scripts have turned into movies, the best you will get paid.

So, there are some famous screenwriters who make crappy scripts and still get good numbers for them.

Cool forum, cool people here.

[icerose]

In Spain, after the first deal, everything else is based on your fame and experience. The more of your scripts have turned into movies, the best you will get paid.

So, there are some famous screenwriters who make crappy scripts and still get good numbers for them.


I knew I shold have continued with my spanish studies. ;) Not that I have plans of putting out crappy work but it would be nice to have the ability to write in a second language for broader market appeal.

[seanie blue]

I think the minimum payment for a feature script is around $90 or $100K.

No way.

An original screenplay from a first-timer bought by a sig ranges from $35K to $50K if purchased or commissioned outright. That's the WAG range negotiated in 2004, when Hollywood was freaking over rising costs. Very, very few of these buys are made; a dozen a month or less by the sigs.

Treatments, rewrites and adaptations are much more common, and pay less. Novelists with bestseller status might be able to get $100K, but that's getting more difficult to do, too, since most of Hollywood's options during the past five years have tanked.

And as for Elviro's assertion that you make more money if people go to see your movie, he's right: On your next script. You won't see a penny extra no matter how many people go to see a movie made from your story or screenplay. People like Richard Gere and Dustin Hoffman have had to sue to get backend payments. I've met dozens of writers in Hollywood and Manhattan in the past 15 years, and not one of them got extra money unless they were clearly credited as producers of the movie, and some of these people created hit movies (as well as some dogs). You can see that reflected in the credits now; writers of second or third features get listed as producers even though the only thing they did on the set was eat doughnuts.

The big cash that everyone thinks is available in Hollywood is a myth, unless you can make a hit. In Santa Monica, great money can be made by stapling yourself to TV programming. But not the millions everyone would like to think.

There are plenty of examples, though, of people making modest movies very cheaply who then score as auteurs. The best example of this is somebody like Lars von Trier or Spike Lee or Nick Gomez, who seemed to come out of the blue as director-writer-producers. Thier first theatrical releases in the U.S. did fine, but the studios were lining up to give them what they wanted. The most recent example of this is Carlos Reygadas, who made "Japon" on credit cards; I've gushed about this staggeringly brilliant movie on these boards already, but everybody from Madonna to Paramount was ready to give this guy half a million dollars BEFORE his movie was released or reviewed. You can track the writer Guillermo Arriaga, who is a blossom right now: He wrote fro Mexican TV, making $40K a year, at best, and pocketed a few grand to write a screenplay for Amores Perros; brilliant film, smash hit internationally, $5.4 million U.S. box office. That brought him a $100K sale for "21 grams" with Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio del Toro, and more importantly an "associate producer" credit, meaning he could have some of the backend of the $16-million U.S. box office; he didn't get much. But his next written piece was the screenplay for Tommie Lee jones that became "Three Burials of Melquies Estrada," and a screenplay for Brad Pitt which became "Babel." Three Burials was a relative hit ($5-million gross U.S.) for its budget, while Babel hit theatres last week and has so far been a disappointment. But Pitt and Arriaga will team up for "Dallas Buyers Club" next year, when Pitt plays an HIV-infected electrician who goes to any length for a cure; Arriaga easily scored $300K for this job, but the telltale signs of disaster are already attached: Two other screenplay credits are on the movie, the typical Hollywood route to disaster, where too many cooks . . .

If you'd told Arriaga in 1999 that his silly little script for Amores Perros would indirectly lead to a million bucks and a rep as one of the top writers in Hollywood, he would have laughed in your face. And here he is, off an initial sale of several thousand dollars. Maybe five grand.

It's the only route in, from my view, bringing total control over a project to a movie you can show in Hollywood. A dozen sig buys next month will be all that is available to first-time screenplay writers, and there are more than 2 million screenplays in Tinseltown.

[Goodwriterguy]

No way.

An original screenplay from a first-timer bought by a sig ranges from $35K to $50K if purchased or commissioned outright. That's the WAG range negotiated in 2004, when Hollywood was freaking over rising costs. Very, very few of these buys are made; a dozen a month or less by the sigs.
The last time I looked the min for a feature was about $80K but admittedly this was probably earlier than 04, more likely in 03, and I figured like everything else, the rate had gone up, not down, and certainbly not down as radically as you claim (although, I'm not contending your numbers are wrong).

My comments did not address the frequency of sig sales, so your remarks on that score exceed reponding to anything I said.

Moreover, as its title suggests, the Minimum Basic Agreement specifies minimums to be paid, not ranges, or has this changed too?

Cheers!

[Mike The Mover]

Moreover, as its title suggests, the Minimum Basic Agreement specifies minimums to be paid, not ranges, or has this changed too?

If you look at the document it says LOW and HIGH. I'm guessing low is the minimum.

[Goodwriterguy]

If you look at the document it says LOW and HIGH. I'm guessing low is the minimum.
You're right, and the range is a function of the picture's budget, I believe, of which there are two categories, low-budget and any other budget. IOW, you'll bet paid something down to the minimum if your picture is a low budget project and you'll get paid something up to the maximum if it's a big budget picture. I think the cutoff is $5 million, anything less than that is considered a low-budget production.

Thanks!

[Joe Unidos]

You're right, and the range is a function of the picture's budget, I believe, of which there are two categories, low-budget and any other budget. IOW, you'll bet paid something down to the minimum if your picture is a low budget project and you'll get paid something up to the maximum if it's a big budget picture.

Wrong. They are both minimums. The minimum for a film budgeted under $Xmil and the minimum for a film budgeted over $Xmil. I think low budget is currently at $1.2m.

There are no maximums.

[English Dave]

Wrong. They are both minimums. The minimum for a film budgeted under $Xmil and the minimum for a film budgeted over $Xmil. I think low budget is currently at $1.2m.

There are no maximums.



The key word being minimum. I.E that is the LEAST you can expect to be paid by a WGA. sig. The maximum is, as ever, the most you can screw out of them.

And that depends how hot your script is and how desperate they are for it.

But it isn't just about money. If you have competing prodco's take a look at their 'buys to makes' ratio. I'd rather go with a prodco for less money if I thought they were serious about making it than take bigger bucks from someone else and possibly sit in development hell for years.

This is one instance where credit is better than cash. :)

[seanie blue]

But it isn't just about money. If you have competing prodco's take a look at their 'buys to makes' ratio. I'd rather go with a prodco for less money if I thought they were serious about making it than take bigger bucks from someone else and possibly sit in development hell for years. This is one instance where credit is better than cash.

100% in agreement. It is absurd how many writers think they've made a sale in Hollywood because two brothers with a camera wrote a check for two grand, when no possible movie will come out of the effort. Most of the prodcos, especially those attached to a name, such as Jodie Foster or George Clooney, pay out small options to several dozen writers ($10K to $50k, usually much closer to the former) to tie up titles they're interested in, but how many movies has Egg Productions (Foster) actually made? One every three years?

I was out with two writer-directors in Studio City last night; they've been here seven years, working on movies, traveling the country as ADs, putting on casting calls and performing or producing small theatre (99 seats or less), and they've submitted several screenplays each to FRIENDS and INSIDERS and received accolades and hurrahs and not one single dime.

Hollywood buys two dozen new scripts a month. Period. Your best bet to get noticed is to make an intelligent, vivid movie like Zentropa or Mala Noche for twenty grand. Or even to SAY that you're making a movie. If a screenplay is the Ford Focus of literature (anyone can own one), and a novel is a BMW, an actual 72-minute bad movie is like a Mercedes. And a screenplay today in Hollywood is more like a salvage wreck where you pay the two truck to haul it away; they are not read, not passed around, not considered for anything other than they make the recipient look busy, and yet these things continue to proliferate like rats.

And . . . it is . . . getting . . . . worse:

This is from the New York Times business department (Media & Advertising), with a graphic showing the Oscar Statuette holding a sign reading "Will write for food":

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/business/media/06studio.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1162944787-Hm5E+n73dkJZbDGsZe+Aog