The deal is that you can do it, you don't really owe me anything, but at the end of it, I own the film. Then I can actually go out and reprint or not reprint if it I want.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As an author, you can't expect a movie to be an illustration of the book. If that's what you hope for, you shouldn't sell the rights.
So it is fair enough that you are paying me what I ask for, because it is my name you are using to sell the film. If the producer gives me a guarantee that he will sell the film at a lower price to the distributors, fair enough, then I will charge less!
As long as a film stays unmade, the book is entirely yours, it belongs to the writer. As soon as you make it into a film, suddenly more people see it than have ever read the book.
I sign a film based on the story, the role I play, and the maker.
The things I have sold to film, I've sold because I was happy to rent out the right to adapt those works. Some things, I haven't sold to film, because I was less interested in having no control over the adaptation.
It costs so much to make films. With a novel, you can write the whole thing on a ream of paper from Staples for $4.
No one forces me, or any other writer, to sell a film option on the books. If you don't want to run the risk that the filmmakers may adapt your work in a way you don't like, then you don't sell the option. You know when you sell it that they will have to make some changes, just because film and TV are different media than books.
I'm not sure my books would translate into movies very easily. So rather than have someone do a terrible job, I haven't been willing to sell them.
Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.
I'm looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.