Book-to-film and creative control

Hi Miss Plum.

It's not at all complicated. Power comes with leverage. Have a hit book with the promise of not only box office success, but 8 films' worth, and ancillary revenue (licensing, etc.) out the proverbial yang, then you'll have the studios frothing at the mouth to buy the rights. Emanating from such froth comes the leverage to demand a material amount of creative control and things like an all British cast (which sent Spielberg packing--think about the power of that for a second).

Honestly, if I were your agent, I'd advise you to put such thoughts out of your beautiful, creative mind. Go write incredible fiction. Hollywood is paying VERY close attention to hot books with great movie potential, believe me. If you make the first call to Hollywood, I guarantee your leverage will be significantly diminished. No froth.

Happy writing!

Your literary agent would negotiate the film rights to your book, though he or she may employ more informed help if they felt out of their depth. My agent represents a children's author who recently sold film rights to his series of supernatural kids' books and by the end of it, the contract looked like the Yellow Pages and covered just about every monetary possibility (merchandise, DVDs, further books, television broadcasts, them park rides etc). It even had provisions in it about how the studio would design and render a 3D character. It was a long negotiation and they didn't get everything they wanted but I think they were thrilled with the end result. So I'd say the level of control you have over a film depends on your power in the book world - are you a JK Rowling, Dan Brown, Stephen King etc - but also the negotiating ability and tenacity of your representative and the openness (or not) of the people you're dealing with.

clockwork said:

Your literary agent would negotiate the film rights to your book, though he or she may employ more informed help if they felt out of their depth. My agent represents a children's author who recently sold film rights to his series of supernatural kids' books and by the end of it, the contract looked like the Yellow Pages and covered just about every monetary possibility (merchandise, DVDs, further books, television broadcasts, them park rides etc). It even had provisions in it about how the studio would design and render a 3D character. It was a long negotiation and they didn't get everything they wanted but I think they were thrilled with the end result. So I'd say the level of control you have over a film depends on your power in the book world - are you a JK Rowling, Dan Brown, Stephen King etc - but also the negotiating ability and tenacity of your representative and the openness (or not) of the people you're dealing with.

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The childrens author your agent represents, is he/she a big name in the industry or an unknown who got really lucky? It sounds like the contract they received was very smart and fair.
The reason why I am asking is because I am going through something very similar right now, and I am trying to educate myself as much as possible before I am eaten alive by the film industry.

In these days of credit crunch, give me the cheque and I'd gladly pass over control.

Incidentally, Jeffrey Archer, best-selling author and jailbird, used to sell his movie rights for $1, in the assumption that the book sales generated would pay his bail. Or something!

Howler said:

The childrens author your agent represents, is he/she a big name in the industry or an unknown who got really lucky? It sounds like the contract they received was very smart and fair.
The reason why I am asking is because I am going through something very similar right now, and I am trying to educate myself as much as possible before I am eaten alive by the film industry.

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This author was a screenwriter first and had some success but not much, and so like a lot of screenwriters decided to write books instead. He's no JK Rowling but his books are almost certainly known by the majority of children and you can find them in all bookstores and, more importantly, supermarkets - which to me suggests a very strong mainstream acceptance/achievement. He's certainly broke the £1 million mark anyway.

But it will vary by the agent. This particular agent has a strong reputation and is already very well-respected in the industry. She may have employed outside counsel, or advice at the least, though, because the bulk of her focus is books and not TV/film.

Miss Plum said:

Hey, all. This is something I also posted at Wordplayer, but I want to cast my net a little wider.

Stephenie Meyer and J.K. Rowling reportedly have near-complete creative control over the films made from their books. How does this happen? At what point does their power-hammer come down? When the film rights are sold? At some later point when the film is greenlit but before it goes into production? Who negotiates that creative control? The literary agent who brokered the film rights, or another rep on the Hollywood side? I'm curious about the intricacies and I want to know a few things before I start asking my agent a bunch of dumb noob questions. No, I'm not planning on pushing myself as the next J.K. Rowling, but I'd like to know as much as possible.

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Things like creative control are all formalized in the initial contract and are exceedingly rare -- almost vanishingly rare for authors who are not also, in some fashion, also producers in more than name only. They are generally stated in the form of things like script approval, cast approval (and this can include or exclude the lead actors or be limited to certain lists of approved stars), and may rarely include final cut, although it's rare even for directors to get that. The way it happens is that you have a book that's so unbelievably successful -- and you really want that kind of control -- that you simply make getting it a condition of selling the rights (and this would be negotiated, under normal circumstances, by an agent who specializes in the sale of movie and other media rights -- not by their regular "book" agent -- though it would usually be an agent in the same agency). And if a studio wants to get the book badly enough, they bite the bullet and give you what you want, even though they hate like hell having to give that kind of creative control to authors. In fact, they hate doing it so much that they sometimes give it with one hand and take it back with the other. For instance, Clive Cussler was presumably given script approval on Sahara and ultimately sued because the final movie came out and he didn't like it and claimed that it was wildly different from what he'd approved of. And it probably was. What he sort of failed to realize is that most movies end up wildly different from the final approved script. They get on the set and they just change stuff. And after they change it on the set they get into post and they re-record lines and re-cut it and change it some more -- so that by the time the movie is finished it can be hugely different from the "approved" script. And he may have had "script" approval -- but he didn't have "movie" approval -- as he found out to his sorrow when he lost his lawsuit. Of course, ideally, you want to make the author of your popular movie based on their popular book happy because you want them to go out and hype your movie, not go out and attack it and sue you -- but sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. NMS

Miss Plum said:

Stephenie Meyer and J.K. Rowling reportedly have near-complete creative control over the films made from their books. How does this happen?

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The key word in that sentence is 'reportedly'. I don't believe that it did happen.

I'm not saying they are lying - I just suspect that their creative control was like Clive Cussler's - in the contract he had script approval but that didn't mean a great deal in the end.

In Clive's case his contract stated:

1. Cussler would provide (or approve) a screenplay based on his novel.
2. Once the screenplay was approved then he got a big chunk of money for film rights. (Otherwise he could just not approve any screenplay)
3. (The production company) “would not change the Approved Screenplay without Cussler’s written approval exercisable in his sole and absolute discretion.”

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That seems pretty solid - right?

In reality, of course, that wasn't the case at all. And given the amount of strife the Cussler gave the production company (especially over the right to approve the two lead actors) I'd be surprised if anyone in their right mind would continue that tradition!

It's a big marketing factor for those projects to be seen as giving the authors full creative control. Just like the Narnia projects are careful to be seen employing one of C.S Lewis's family members as consultant.

I'm not saying that it is all a marketing ploy - they probably have a great relationship . I'm sure they are being consulted and kept up to date as often as they wish.

But what if they announced they didn't like the hairstyles in the previous 3 weeks shooting and that they'd need to film it all again ?

I am absolutely positive that they'd find that their 'full creative control' is actually a lot more limited and a lot less 'full' than what the press releases announce.

Mac
(If you want to see the Cussler court findings:

http://reporter.blogs.com/files/cussler.pdf

There's another one which contradicts this one - but this is the one which nicely summarises the core dispute.

I really feel sorry for the production company - they paid for over two dozen screenplay drafts to be written yet Cussler would not approve any of them - sometimes even rejecting them before he'd read them.)
(PS: I used to have a copy of Cussler's actual contract somewhere - I love court cases because the contracts often end up as public filings. I can't find it in my usual archives though. Anyone have a link?)

There are really only two ways to have significant (to any at all) creative control over the film.

1. Be a household name that generates millions through the book, particularly children's books. (Kids are MUCH fussier about changes from the book to the movie.) If John Q. Public doesn't recognize your name, chances are you don't have that kind of pull.

2. A significant portion of the film budget is coming out of your pocket. Them that has da money, make da rules.

I sit on the other side of the desk most of the time (though I love to write, my day job is in production).

As harsh as it sounds, the people that are the top concern to keep happy, are the ones with the deep pockets. The deep pockets want to keep the big names happy - whether that's the star power, sometimes a director, sometimes another player with a long list of successes. That's the only reason the media darling writer will have clout. Known names put butts in seats, and that affects the bottom line.

If it helps, a bad movie doesn't tend to negatively affect sales. It's one of the few cases where 'any publicity is good' actually is true, because it spreads awareness of the book. And the general public does realize that movies and books aren't always the same.

I don't know about anyone else, but Rowling did have pretty much complete control, and in every way. Write a handful of books that earn the publisher billions of dollars, and control is assured. . .if you want it.

But complete control doesn't necessaily mean the writer does anything, nixes anything, etc. It just means they can, should a director decide he doesn't want to follow the books.