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Well, so, there’s an old proverb most commonly expressed as “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too”, basically meaning you can’t have something both ways, especially when both those ways are favorable to you. One of the concrete examples of that would be commissioning a design job: if you tell the designer you want it done ultra-fast, low-cost, and high quality, they will, depending on their level of professionalism, respond with varying degrees of laughing in your face. At least one leg of that triangle is going to have to give.
I realize that’s three things, so let’s do another example. You want to sell your car to a buyer and get the money for it, but still retain all ownership of your car. Doesn’t seem very logical, especially to the buyer who would be getting nothing out of the deal. It’s like deciding to stop paying your power bill, but still wanting your electricity.
Well, that’s us. Apparently a recent court decision has the potential to declare major movie studios can do just that.
http://www.tessgerritsen.com/gravity-lawsuit-affects-every-writer-sells-hollywood/
Now I’ve written before on the pitfalls artists can encounter when entering into deals involving their creative work, but Tess Gerritsen’s case seems like a whole new level of weird. If you didn’t read her post at the above link, the upshot is that in 1999 she published a novel entitled Gravity, and ended up optioning the rights to make a movie out of that book to New Line Cinema, of course with name recognition and compensation to her should it happen. She even did some script work on a screenplay, and the movie got far enough along she heard a director had been attached… but then the project was shelved.
Now if you’re keeping track, you’ll realize a quite successful Warner Bros produced movie came out recently with the name Gravity. There were similarities to Gerritsen’s book, even moreso given the screenplay rewrites she did, but… eh, parallel evolution can happen. It wasn’t until her agent uncovered that the man who co-wrote the “original screenplay” for the 2013 movie was the same man who’d been attached as director on the earlier attempt, Alfonso Cuaron. Still, Warner had merged with New Line in 2008, gaining access to all its properties, so they had legal rights to use Gerritsen’s work. Sure.
But that’s where it gets weird. Somewhere in 2008-2009 Cuaron writes his screenplay, the movie is developed and released, and not only does Gerritsen not see a dime of payment, she isn’t even credited.
Outrageous? Unethical? Probably. Also not uncommon in Hollywood. Hell, my friend produced and showed off a short film at San Diego Comic-Con, and two years later Divergent was made and bore some really shady similarities to his work. Hard to prove these sorts of things, though. If it weren’t for Cuaron’s earlier involvement with the proto-Gravity, it probably wouldn’t have merited much more than an annoyed shrug from Gerritsen.
The part that gets weird is that in the court case that was filed, Warner apparently didn’t argue that the eventual film wasn’t based on Gerritsen’s work, they just argued that because Gerritsen’s contract was with New Line, they didn’t have to honor it.
That’s the eat the cake and still keep the cake part. Warner merged with New Line, meaning they got access to all of New Line’s properties and dealings, but Warner is arguing that they have the rights to make a movie involving a writer’s intellectual property, rights acquired as part of New Line’s contract with Gerritsen, but they don’t have to honor the part of the contract where they would be paying her and giving her credit.
And apparently, the judge agreed with that reasoning.
Some writers are worried this will set a nasty precedent, given how often mergers and buyouts occur these days. Are they correct? Maybe. We only really have Gerritsen’s side of the story, but if true, the line of reasoning doesn’t seem very logical at all.
Certainly it’s a very, very good argument for making sure any optioning agreements a writer makes with any movie studio come with an expiration date. Hopefully the courts would at least consider that part of a contract to be something to be honored.