“Why You Won’t Get Mel Gibson - or How Talent Finds Scripts”
LIBERTAAS
[Editor’s Note: Below is the first in a series of three articles by our friend Michael Mandaville, a Hollywood line producer and unit production manager. We here at the Liberty Film Festival are regularly asked to read screenplays, pass along screenplays to producers, help people produce their screenplays, etc. Our policy on that sort of activity is posted here. We thought we would ask Michael to offer his practical advice to screenwriters on how to write and promote a script that actually has a chance of getting made.]
In Hollywood, the dream is to write your script in 21 days, get it to Mel Gibson who cuts you in for a generous piece of the profits – gross profits of course – and then attend the premiere. In a limo, with beautiful Hollywood people.
In reality, the chance of getting a script to Mel Gibson is almost nil.
Why?
The process of script submission to a major star, i.e., Gibson, Cruise, Ford, Zellweger, Kidman, etc., starts with the ‘Gatekeepers’. The stars’ agents and managers.
These people are not filmmakers. They are business people. They are focusing on their ten percent of their client’s massive paycheck. Their clients – Movie Stars - can ‘open’ a film. That is to say, their star power draws in enough moviegoers to earn back the film’s budget and make profits for the distributions and producers.
So why not your script?
You tell yourself: “Darn it, there are excellent characters, a unique plot, amazing settings. If they only just read it!”
That’s not how it works in Hollywood with A-List players.
First, these stars will book their projects a year or two in advance. Pre-production on major studio films can take five months or a year before principal photography. Principal photography can take six months. A major client may take one or two films a year. Since these gatekeepers get thousands of scripts for their clients, the odds do not favor your script.
Second, these agents and managers bank on the writer’s past success – scripts sold, blockbusters written, etc. No matter who is attached to a film, a bad script is still a bad script. That’s one reason why top writers fetch top dollar. Their scripts, more often than not, work at the box office.
Third, since the agents and manager focus on their ten percent of $12, $15 or $20 million dollars, the script becomes secondary to the Package. The Producer. The Director. The Other Stars. The Supporting Characters. If they advise their client to do a film – and it fails – then their precious meal ticket can move across town to a rival agency. They need an “Out.” That’s the Package - the credits of the writer, director and producers.
Finally, just like William Goldman said about the film industry, “nobody knows anything.” These Gatekeepers don’t really know if a script will become a hit. That’s why they financed huge bombs like The Island, The Interpreter, etc. They had star power and packaging but still didn’t connect with audiences. The studios dump hundreds of millions of dollars into a single film, but very few become true blockbusters. In the last few years, true blockbusters are films like the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series. Films with a heavy merchandising slant feed ancillary revenue streams like cartoons, TV specials, and the lunchboxes at Toys ‘R’ Us.
The screenwriter’s office.
If these points are depressing news for you, then just maybe the film industry is not your cup of tea. You are embarking upon a career with enormous obstacles and challenges. Get used to hearing “no.” There are keen disappointments. Your perseverance will be severely tested. But let’s say you’ve already done all that self-introspection.
So you ask yourself what should you write to break into Hollywood:
Low and modest budget films.
These films will appeal to a greater number of producers, distributors and financiers. This range, between $2 million and $7 million, also means that you won’t have to get Nicole Kidman or Tom Cruise to greenlight your project. You won’t get completely lost in the studio system. You might still be allowed on the set. If your film is below a few million dollars, then you might even have a producer willing to let you direct. We’ll cover some points about low budget filmmaking and writing in our next installment, “When the Hun Didn’t Invade Rome - How to Write Low Budget to Break Into Hollywood.”
Michael Mandaville is a Line producer and a Unit Production Manager in the Director’s Guild of America. He has worked for bond companies supervising motion pictures of various budgets, and operates the web-site Politifaq.com.
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