Ha! So true.
I’m not a movie-maker. I have no interest in becoming a movie-maker. Someone wants to give me money and then do a lot of hard work? Have at it, suckers!
Yes, but if it comes down to “We don’t want to kill off Margaret because it will make viewers sad,” “But then the last third of the story just makes no sense,” I would at least want to make sure they did not turn my story into pap (cf., Brazil).
I assumed from the OP that the $1 million option didn’t mean you had to micromanage all the details, just that you had the ability to step in and exert whatever control was necessary to make sure the moviemakers don’t “greatly change and misrepresent your novel and message in a way you will intensely hate,” which is guaranteed to happen in the $2 million case.
No, it is not guaranteed to be something you hate. You might well adore the movie, or find that it explores avenues you had not considered. And if you write Romance-novel type material, chances are movie producers are probably going to be thinking along the same lines as you anyway.
What if Winston Groom, the author of the Forrest Gump book, had the hubris to think the same way? In case you haven’t read it, the book is terrible and barely readable at all. No matter what you think about the movie, it is a miracle that anyone could turn it into anything watchable let alone an Academy Awards Best Picture.
Gone with the Wind is a great novel and a landmark movie even though the movie deviates significantly from the book. Even at about a four hour run time, the movie had to carefully pick what stories and substories to emphasize. Margaret Mitchell would probably have had very different ideas if she had significant control (Scarlett was rather homely looking in the book just as one major difference so Vivian Leigh would have been right out if she got to pick the lead). The Wizard of Oz is a decent novel but an outstanding movie that also diverges greatly from the book.
It takes very different skills to write a good novel (mostly a solitary act) than it does to organize everything that is required to condense the book down to about two hours of screen time and somehow organize the hundreds of people involved in a movie production. The two skillsets don’t tend to overlap that much.
How badly are they subverting the message?
If the ultimate message turns out to be something like “we should nuke Africa” I probably don’t want to be tied to it.
If it’s more like “James is supposed to be the jerk, not Richard” then I don’t really care.
You don’t seem to get the premise. If the choice was $2 million for letting a decent director and screenwriter make the movie, versus $1 million to anally micromanage everything and make sure they don’t touch one word of my deathless prose, I’d take the $2 million in a flash.
Harlan Ellison told the story about how he and Roddenberry went to a producer about making the first Star Trek movie, and the producer told them it should have Mayans in it. I see the $2 million guy as that producer. You want to go around the rest of your life with people asking you why you were stupid enough to put Mayans in your book? Because they will.
I’ll take the $2 million. I’d honestly expect a bit more from a best-selling novel, and a million just doesn’t go as far as it used to. Plus I really don’t want to deal with the shit of creative control of a movie.
I like Max Brook’s take on World War Z. He said he didn’t have any issues with the film because it was changed so much that the only similarity was the name. It’s like it wasn’t even his book they referenced.
No brainer. Take the $2 million.
Making a movie is hard. The odds of someone with no experience in film-making being able to walk in off the street and wrangle a Hollywood production into something artistically acceptable are close to zero.
So it’s not a choice between a bad adaptation for $2m and a good adaptation for $1m. It’s a choice between a definitely-bad adaptation for $2m and a probably-bad adaptation for $1m.
Furthermore, the probably-bad adaptation will be blamed on you because you had creative control. You can’t distance yourself from it they way you can the definitely-bad version.
Take the $2 million and spend your time writing another best selling novel instead of playing movie director.
I would hope i would be smart enough to realize that just because i can write doesn’t mean i know jack shit about casting, scenes, trailers, marketing or editing.
I’ve seen the movie version of Starship Troopers and once you get over $100,000 its all the same to me. I’m keeping some control.
For clarification, with my thread, I don’t mean that you must do all the director/editor/scriptwriter work for the movie with the $1 million option. Obviously that would be immensely difficult for someone with no cinema experience.
I mean more along the lines of, “The producers make the movie, with you having full power to edit, change or delete or add anything you please.” In other words, they drive the car, but you get to play backseat driver, with full veto/override power.
For two million, do you still retain the right to withdraw your name from the credits and insist on a title change?
No, unfortunately, people will associate the movie with you. The title and credits stay.
I just want some control over casting. That’s where the sex is, right?
I’d want at least as much control as is given to the author for adaptations of stuff by that guy Shakespeare.
I said I’d not sell the rights, but that’s not really true. I do have a price. But two million is chump change. I wouldn’t sell for that. I wouldn’t answer the phone for less than 10 - unless it was Kenneth Brannagh. For Brannagh, I would do 5. Joss Whedon, I’d probably do 12. I’m drawing a blank on anyone else although if Emma Thompson or Cate Blanchett called, I’d certainly call them back.
Oh! Fry and/or Laurie - I would take their emails, no problem. And probably Eddie Izzard.
Not to nitpick, but it’s hard to learn the offer price without answering the phone. 
Again, for clarification, you don’t *have *to do any work or hassle with the $1 million option if you don’t want - what that option does is, it lets you approve, edit or disapprove of the hard work *other *people are doing. If they are skewing your story, you can say, “Stop.” If you mean for a particular agenda to be emphasized, you can say, “I want this agenda.” If you think a jazzy, upbeat soundtrack is terribly inappropriate for a sad death scene, you can say, “The music doesn’t fit.” You don’t have to do the composing or scriptwriting; you simply steer other people’s work direction.