Royalty-only WFH publishers

[NatGertler]

But, but, but... some of those work-for-hire publishers don't just offer royalty. They also offer a cut of the movie deal. And they hear that other publishers are making a lot of money that way!

[Steven Grant]

The movie deal. Heh. Considering most movies take years to get made, most movie "deals" never result in produced movies, and significant money almost never changes hands before a movie goes into production despite what the best case press releases from publicity agents say about every deal, that better be one huge hell of a cut...

- Grant

[bartl]

The movie deal. Heh. Considering most movies take years to get made, most movie "deals" never result in produced movies, and significant money almost never changes hands before a movie goes into production despite what the best case press releases from publicity agents say about every deal, that better be one huge hell of a cut...
A lot of your work would translate well into movies. I doubt that Enemy will ever see the light of day; any chance of anything happening with Badlands?

[Steven Grant]

A lot of your work would translate well into movies. I doubt that Enemy will ever see the light of day; any chance of anything happening with Badlands?

At this point, I wouldn't place long odds against either of those making it to the screen relatively soon...

- Grant

[NatGertler]

The movie deal. Heh. Considering most movies take years to get made, most movie "deals" never result in produced movies, and significant money almost never changes hands before a movie goes into production despite what the best case press releases from publicity agents say about every deal, that better be one huge hell of a cut...On top of that, most of the publishers trying to set this up don't know a darned thing about arranging a move deal. They'll say "if you take this to Big Company A or Hollywood-based Company B, they'll also want to take control and get the lion's share of the movie money"... without pointing out that A or B will actually have a good shot of putting a deal together, that they've danced the dance before and have people at work getting it made, so it may actually be to your advantage to have A or B as a major participant (not always, but may). They're hoping that you've got a winning lottery ticket... and they want most of it.

[Steven Grant]

On top of that, most of the publishers trying to set this up don't know a darned thing about arranging a move deal. They'll say "if you take this to Big Company A or Hollywood-based Company B, they'll also want to take control and get the lion's share of the movie money"... without pointing out that A or B will actually have a good shot of putting a deal together, that they've danced the dance before and have people at work getting it made, so it may actually be to your advantage to have A or B as a major participant (not always, but may). They're hoping that you've got a winning lottery ticket... and they want most of it.

What they also mean is that company A or company B won't deal with them in the first place, but what they don't see to get is that if they take the property to little producer C who promises them the world, little producer C is just going to take it to company A or B anyway, because the studios talk to A and B all the time and C is lucky to even land a meeting with a junior studio exec. So your cut will be a portion of C's cut, at best, and C will be lucky if he has enough juice to stay on a producer anyway, and then the publisher will want a lot of money so you're just getting screwed all the way down the line, but at least Publisher will then be able to tell other naive freelancers he has "Hollywood connections."

And most publishers are far more gullible than even comics freelancers when it comes to Hollywood deals.

- Grant

[NatGertler]

I love the title "producer". It makes it sound like they actually produce something, which is so often not the case.

--Nat, gullible freelancer and gullible publisher, all in one!