BIZ TIP TUESDAY:
IT'S A BUSINESS!
Last summer, THE DARK KNIGHT broke all kinds of box office records and ended up the #2 most popular movie *of all time*.
Over the weekend, DISTRICT 9, a sci-fi movie from South Africa (one of those foreign films)
made over $37 million... you know that because
you saw it on the TV news last night and read it in the newspaper. Sure there's still a war going on, and the economy
is going to hell, and people are fighting over health care... but the new
sci-fi movie made $37 million!
A few years ago at one of the Scriptwriters Network's
monthly meeting our guest speaker was a fellow
named John Lee who owns a consulting firm for producers and
studios. He's a business guy, and he talked for two hours on the
economics of motion picture production... and how it effects us
as screenwriters. Producers pay John's company $12,000 to analyze
a screenplay's profits if it is turned into a movie. They look at
the genre, they have a checklist of exploitable elements like
sex, action, dramatic scenes, comedy scenes, they look at the age
group the film will most appeal to (15-25 year olds are most
desirable - they are regular movie goers), whether the story
appeals to men or women or both... and all of this
gets fed into a computer and what comes out is a fairly accurate
projection of what kind of money a film based on this script will
make. If the projected profits are over twice what the producer
thinks the film will cost to make, they buy the script.
I was amazed that a handful of L.A. based screenwriters were
SHOCKED (SHOCKED!) that business entered into the decision to buy a script -
many thought that was strictly a creative decision - all about artistic merit. But MOST of
the screenwriters in the room had no idea to what extent business
is part of the decision to buy a script.
Friends, business is 100% of the reason to buy a
screenplay. Even if the script appeals to a niche audience.
Movies are the most expensive form of entertainment. The
average cost to distribute and advertize a movie is about $35.9
million. That doesn't include the cost of making the film (the
budget), that's just getting the film in theaters and buying ads
in newspapers, magazines and TV so that people know the film
exists. The *average* production costs $70.8 million, making the *average* movie cost $106.6 million by the time it reaches your cinema screen. So buying
your script is a $100 million plus decision.
Any time someone is going to spend over $100 million, they
aren't thinking about winning Oscars or making a good movie or
even telling a coherent story... They're thinking about making
back their investment. So the main question ISN'T "is this script
well written?" it's "will this script make us a ton of money?"
What's important to them: Will this movie make lots of
money?
What's important to us: Is this a well written, emotionally
involving script?
Guess what? Our scripts can be both.
In fact, our scripts HAVE TO BE BOTH.
Here's the comforting part of this - the reason why a movie makes a bunch of money is because people think it is a good movie. They like the film and tell their friends to see it, and word of mouth grows. No matter how much they advertize MEET DAVE or SPEED RACER, the audience isn't going to pay to see them. Their friends warned them, or they've seen the trailers and wondered if those were the best 3 minutes of the film, how dreadful must the rest be? Someone, I think the great Billy Wilder, once said that individually the audience are imbeciles, but collectively they are genius. They usually know a good movie when they see it... and a bad one. Obviously, they thought THE DARK KNIGHT was a good movie and texted their friends...
I think the sequel to a popular film has a built in first week audience - it cruises on the word of mouth from the original film. People thought BATMAN BEGINS was a good movie, and were excited about seeing the sequel. Which is why the film was sold out in many cinemas before anyone had seen the film. But I think the film will continue to attract an audience because it *is* a good movie. The Joker's "Social Experiments" are frightening... and really make you wonder what you would do... what the people around you would do. Hey, the film may have some great action scenes, but it also makes you question yourself and society. It makes you think.
And DARK KNIGHT is getting great reviews from critics and actual Oscar buzz for Heath Ledger's final performance. Rotten Tomatoes has it at ***94%*** good reviews. You can make a *popular film*, a *money making film*, that is also a *good film*. DARK KNIGHT works as entertainment and art. That should be our goal when we write scripts - will the business people love this script... and will it be a good, satisfying movie that explores character and the human condition? We need to achieve both goals. The sad part for us is that the business guys have to think it will make lots of money or they won't make the movie in the first place.
Movies are mass entertainment. They have to appeal to millions
and millions of people. According to John Lee, the average film is seen by 600
million people worldwide - and your script needs to be something
that will appeal to all of those people. Not a story that only
appeals to you, not a story that only appeals to your social or
ethnic group, not a story that only appeals to Americans, not a
story that appeals only to people who speak English. You script
needs to appeal to 600 million people worldwide. Your story
has to be so exciting, that 600 million people will pay money
to see it. Mainstream American films, the kind of movies that are made inside
the system, where they *buy* screenplays, are not designed for American audiences -
they are designed for the whole world to see.
Producers are businessmen. They don't buy scripts because they
like them. They buy scripts because they think a movie made from
them will bring in hundreds of millions of dollars... but it
helps if they like them. The business part comes first, though.
It has to when you're talking about spending over $100
million.
Is your story so exciting that 600 million people will
leave their homes and spend money just to see it? Is the IDEA
behind your script exciting? If your story isn't exciting enough
to attract a mass audience, it's probably not a movie story...
maybe it's a book or a stage play story. Can you cut together a
30 second TV ad for your film that will make millions of people
drop everything to stand in line and see it? Remember, this is a
business - and our scripts are the blueprints for a building
that's going to cost some producer over $100 million to
build.
We want that blueprint to be something the business guys will love, something the audience will love, something the critics will love, and something that we will love to write.
