Writers, a friendly reminder: Movies are a BUSINESS!
We sit in our offices or studies. Coffee shops or diners. Tapping away on our keyboards. Trying our best to wrangle magic. It’s what we do. Writers. Making something out of nothing.
But here’s the deal. Hollywood doesn’t just buy something
Hollywood buys great things. Commercial things. Profitable things.
Why?
Because movies are a business.
Need a reminder? Check out this year-end review of the major studios reported profits from 2012 courtesy of THR:
Big international box office, Netflix licensing deals and growing TV production arms helped the filmed entertainment divisions of the six big Hollywood conglomerates post more than $3.5 billion in operating profits in 2012. But that was no match for the year before.
Theatrical performance was mixed — as always. And while home entertainment stopped declining, it didn’t provide a big boost. Overall, the studio units of all sector biggies except for Comcast’s NBCUniversal recorded profit declines for 2012.
That is the economic environment in which your spec scripts will be assessed in 2013. Profits were down last year. Therefore the bar has been raised. For a script to sell this year, it has to be that much better, that much more commercially viable, that much more obvious to buyers.
So if you’re considering a possible story concept and you say, “That’s decent”…
Not good enough.
If you’re looking at an action scene you wrote and you say, “That’s pretty good”…
Not good enough.
If you’re judging the effectiveness of a character and you say, “She’s okay”…
Not good enough.
You have to bring your A-game to every story concept, every scene, every line of your screenplay. Because as much as you’d like to believe Hollywood is assaying your story from an aesthetic standpoint, while there is some truth to that, the more important reality is this:
Movies are a BUSINESS!
What you present in terms of a spec script, everything from story concept to characters, structure to execution has to ring their bells and make the buyers believe they can make money on your project.
Otherwise…
They won’t buy it.
It’s as simple as that.
This has been a public service announcement from Movies Are A Commodity And Don’t You Forget It.
Or as has been attributed to Charlton Heston: “The problem with movies as art is they are commerce.”
Comment Archive