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What’s the Deal With Free Options?
By Paul Lawrence
While writers and producers have the same goal of getting a script turned into a film that gets distributed and,
with any luck, makes a profit, they also have an adversarial relationship in relation to the fees that a writer will be paid. Understandably, the writer wants to get paid a handsome sum up front and perhaps a piece of the back end (the back end refers to participating in any profits) on top of that. However, the producer would like to pay nothing up front and as little bit as possible out of the profits. Generally, deals get made by the two parties landing somewhere in the middle, where each party has a deal they can live with.
In the last six months I have had the good fortune to sell two scripts. In each one of these cases, I was paid a fee up front and I have a piece of the back end. In one case, the up-front payment was small, but the back end potential is substantial. In the other case, the up-front payment was considerably more, but the back end is also much smaller. It’s my opinion that as the writer, it is always a good idea to obtain some money up front. This way if the picture ends up not getting made, loses money, or you are cheated out of any profits (a very real possibility), at least you got paid something.
However, it’s quite common for a producer to want to obtain the rights to produce your script with no money up front at all. This is called a “free
option.” Technically, for legal purposes, the producer gives you a nominal amount of money, which can be a low as one dollar. This gives the producer the right to exercise an option to buy your script for the terms specified in the option. Then, the producer will “shop” the script around town and try
to get it set up somewhere. If he succeeds at that, then the writer might get paid.
Although naturally, as the writer, you wish to get paid up front there are times when it can make sense to give a producer a “free
option.” Each deal should be looked at individually and then a decision made. Here are some of the things you should consider if a producer requests that you give him/her a free option:
Does this producer have a track record of produced and verifiable credits or other credentials that make you believe that he/she can get your movie made?
And how long is the option for? I have given a producer a “free option” before. In this case, the producer had a number of credits and had an “in” ( a relationship with a person who has decision making power) with a very large producer of female-driven television “long form” (TV
movie). Since the script had a female protagonist and was ideal for a television movie and the option was for a brief period of months, I gave it to her. Unfortunately, her “in” left the company and the new guy wasn’t very receptive to her. So, she returned the rights to me and the script is “for sale” again; nevertheless, I am not sorry I gave it to her and under the right circumstances I might do it again with her.
Now, let me give you a different and very recent real life example of how I handled it when a producer wanted a “free option” from me. I just returned from a trip to L.A. to my home in Fort Lauderdale this last week, where I had what seemed like a very productive meeting with a producer (I had some other meetings too, but that’s a different story). I had
first met with this producer about three months ago, the last time I was in L.A. After he’d read my script, he had expressed a great deal of interest in the project, although he wanted to do a rewrite because of a number of creative concerns that he had. The deal had
been put to the back burner, but now that I’d returned to L.A., my agent set up a new meeting. I was quite enthusiastic because this producer had paid a different client of my agent’s a considerable sum to option one of his scripts, so I had hopes of also signing a lucrative deal.
Well, we had a three-hour lunch and hashed out creative details and at the end of the lunch he announced that he wanted to make a deal. As instructed by my agent, I never discuss the business end and allow my agent to do the negotiating, so I replied that I was looking forward to working with him and that my agent would contact him to work out the details.
My agent did precisely that, but to my surprise this producer was upset at being asked for money up front and fully expected that I would rewrite the script on speculation based on his creative ideas. In this case I absolutely refused to work without any pay up front. This producer goes around town (Hollywood) attending industry events wearing the hat of a producer, yet he has never made one film. Since he’s been doing this for years, I had no good reason to believe that he would be able to set up my film, so I passed. (If I
were going to be paid a handsome option fee, I’d have gladly signed-- even though I still doubt he would’ve set up the picture-- because I’d have gotten a nice payday and in 24 months his option would run out and I’d have the script
back.) Luckily in this case, all I lost was the three hours of listening to him rant at our lunch in Beverly Hills about his views of the
world and how to change my script, and the embarrassment of listening to him insist that the waitress should take his advice and make her soon-to-be ex-husband pay for her to go back to school even though she said she abhorred school and had no intention of ever going back.
So, I would advise that while there are certain times that you might give a “free option” to a producer, that you do this very selectively. It might be nice to say that you’ve had a script optioned but unless the party is a known industry person it won’t open up any doors for you and it will tie up your precious script. In addition, an inept producer could get it read and passed on all over town, so that even when you get it back, there’s nobody to bring it to anymore. If
producers are serious about getting your script made, they will likely pay some money up front. And if they don’t and they don’t have a track record,
you’re probably better off passing on the deal.
Paul Lawrence is a screenwriter/script consultant with his script EXPERIMENT set up with Prime Time Productions to be shot in LA early in 2004 and his screenplay DRAW sold and set for production in 2004 with Monaco Entertainment, three other feature scripts optioned, one sold, one development deal, has done many rewrites for independent Los Angeles based producers, and is represented by a Beverly Hills licensed literary talent agency. He can be reached with questions at
paullawrencewrit@usa.net.
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