My Dad wrote a historical novel several years ago, and eventually got it self-published. It has sold a few hundred copies, mainly locally, and has generally been well-received.
One of the readers, who is also an old school friend of Dad’s and a wealthy businessman, is willing to fund the filming of a movie version, and has found a film-maker who is willing to do this.
They’ve made my Dad the following offer:
£20,000 for the rights (£5,000 up front and £15,000 when filming starts) plus 5% of the profits (if any).
Does this sound reasonable? I think he should accept, but at the same time a little voice is saying - “what if it does go on to be a huge success?” If it is mega-successful, is 5% a rip-off, or should we be realistic and advise him to accept the £20,000 gratefully?
The novel is arguably minority interest, but you never know. Based in 15th and 16th century Spain, it tells the story of a group of ‘conversos’ (descendants of Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity), as they flee from persecution in Cordoba to a hoped-for refuge in Gibraltar, which had recently been recaptured from the Moslems of Granada, and their forced departure from the Rock, two years later. It is largely based on real but little-known historical events, and spans a period between 1450 - 1519.
If it’s mega-successful, 5% is going to be a big pile of money. If nothing else, a movie success will mean a re-printing of the book with subsequent increased sales, and probably the opportunity to do a sequel.
All in all, I think £20000 is a good deal for the movie rights to a book that has sold a few hundred copies.
I’d say he’s got to consider the fact that this is the only offer he’s likely to get. A bird in the hand and all of that.
As Priceguy said, If the movie does well, sales of his book will increase and he might be able to get a sweet deal from a publisher. If the movie doesn’t do well, he’s got at least five grand in his pocket. (Let’s face it-- thousands of movies are made every year and only a tiny portion of them ever make the big bucks.)
My suggestion is for your Dad to find the UK equivalent of Piece O’Donnell. He’s the lawyer in Buchwald v. Paramount. His book on the case is at Amazon.
Q: Is there still that old ‘gross’ vs ‘net’ points thing with movie accounting? I seem to remember someone joking that due to ‘Hollywood Accounting’, movies never make any net profit so that you need gross points if you actually want to see any money. (I think the old joke went something like, “Remember ‘Titanic’ (name of movie differs with every telling)? Made them (the studio) hundreds of millions gross, but the suckers who had net points will never see a dime…” )
I’ve read some articles by Edward Jay Epstein explaining more about Hollywood accounting, in particular in a Slate column called “Hollywood Economist.” Some of his articles can be found at the linked page.
Realistically, though, the odds are that the movie won’t be made, and won’t be successful if it is. £20,000 is a decent amount of money.
Make sure the deal is structured so that if the film isn’t made in a certain amount of time your foather gets the rights back. Basically it sounds like he is selling the option for 5,000 and then 15,000 when filming starts, but it is important that the option can expire so that he can renegotiate with someone else if possible.
It is probably not the case here, but remember I, Robot, Starship Troopers, and many others: Sometimes the movie will just use the title and maybe the vague genre of the book but nothing else. Is your dad OK with that?
Is it possible to negotaite the credit i.e “based on the book by” if he likes it and “savagely stolen from” if he doesn’t ?
Gross is infinitely better than net, but unlikely to happen. Is it possible to have a “precentage of gross over 20m” type contract?
Your dad’s friend has probably never produced a film before, so even he doesn’t know all the ins and outs of the business. Since they are friends, you would think they’ll deal straight with each other but if huge sums of money come in to it, all bets are off.
One scenario is that the Producer sells the film to a distributor for the cost of making the film. So there are no profits from the production of the film. But the producer gets points from the profits from the distribution of the film and your dad gets nothing.
Then there is international distribution and home video, and TV rights to consider.
Yeah, I just read an unauthorized (unsanitized) biography of the Beatles, and according to the author, who reaaaally seems to have done his homework, for all their success, Brian Epstein was just out of his league in the big deals he was doing only a couple years after running a Liverpool record store. He apparently left a lot of money on the table for “A Hard Day’s Night”. I’d get some experienced advice.
The Beatles are a classic case of innocents who were taken for a ride - but then again, none of the parties could have ever, ever imagined how wildly successful they would be.
Dad has incorporated much of the advice from this thread in his reply to his friend. They are also talking about using a media lawyer to help with the contract.
Go for it.