An Open Letter to Amazon Studios
Dear Amazon Studios,
Over the past 10 years, I have dedicated myself to the education and promotion of true writing talent in the area of screenwriting. So, when an opportunity like Amazon Studios comes along, I’m very excited to see new pathways for new writers.
There is a lot of undiscovered talent throughout the world and I applaud your willingness to create another pathway for writers and filmmakers to break in. I can see you are trying to offer a unique opportunity and create a collaborative community in the hopes that the peer development process will succeed at creating better movies than the Hollywood system. It is an innovative approach and is definately worth testing.
The problem: the Amazon Studios agreement has caused a lot of confusion and concern among the writing community.
You can see some of that in these blog posts:
Craig Mazin at The Artful Writer
Amazon’s Bad Deal
Liz Shannon Miller at GigaOM News
Read that Amazon Studios Contract Carefully, Kids.
Jesse Harris of NFFTY
Amazon the Movie Studio? Yeah right?
You say “We’ll evolve our contest rules over time, so you’ll want to check for updates.” on http://studios.amazon.com/getting-started and I’m hoping this letter will help in that process.
I’m not an attorney, but I’ve read hundreds of production company options and deal memos. I’ve also worked with thousands of screenwriters and have a good idea of what is important to them.
May I suggest a few modifications that may make this work even better?
(Please note I’m only discussing the writer’s part, not the filmmaker part.)
1. Consider the screenwriter in this process.
I was at Warner Brothers when this was announced and the question there was “With these terms, will higher quality writers submit scripts?”
Maybe it is a benefit to new writers that more experienced writers won’t submit with these terms, but if your hopes are to actually produce movies, you may want to modify some of these terms to make it attractive for everyone.
A. Currently, you are licensing before optioning???
Source: Development Agreement 6.1.1 to 6.1.4 http://studios.amazon.com/help/development-agreement
That’s like saying you want to have sex with us to decide if you’ll date us. For a writer to license the rights to their script to you without even knowing if they are getting an option assumes they are truly desperate.
B. Automatic 18 month just for submitting?
AMAZON: “So for 18 months after you create a project at Amazon Studios, you cannot display, sell or license your script or test movie elsewhere, or withdraw it for any reason. However, when the option term ends, if we haven’t exercised our option and purchased your work, you will get back non-exclusive rights to your original material.”
Source: Getting Started and FAQ
http://studios.amazon.com/getting-started
I’m guessing that the “You will get back non-exclusive rights” is a typo, so I won’t jump on that. But there are serious concerns here.
Essentially, Amazon will be taking thousands of scripts off the market in the hopes that a few of them get made into movies. And from what I can tell, you are “optioning” without ever looking at the script, so they are not real options for the writer, yet the writer is held to more strict requirements than exist in most industry option agreements.
In the industry, the script is optioned for 18 months because a producer is shopping it. By the Amazon Studio model, writers are losing the right to market their own script — and it is not being marketed by you unless they win.
Is there another way to do this?
C. Credit Determinations?
Development Agreement #15 http://studios.amazon.com/help/development-agreement
First, it is not clear that the original writer will get credit or that there is a process in place for determining who deserves credit if significant revisions have been made.
2. Possible solutions that will make it more of a “fair deal” for writers.
A. Taking the script off the market should only happen if Amazon Studios is truly serious about making some kind of deal with that specific script.
What about “non-exclusive” until the point that Amazon Studios has specifically made a decision to obtain this property and then it automatically becomes “exclusive?” Or what if the “18 month option” went into effect when the script has made it to a certain level that means some kind of deal is really possible?
In either case, Amazon Studios gets what it needs without having the writer lose their right to market their screenplay.
B. Credit?
Option 15. Credit Determinations . “We will determine in our sole discretion your credit, if any, in any film or other work we develop or produce that arises out of the Property, taking into account the guidelines set forth in the WGA Basic Agreement. Our determinations of credit will be final. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the WGA Basic Agreement does not apply to this Option Agreement. We are not a signatory to the WGA Basic Agreement.”
http://studios.amazon.com/help/development-agreement
Does this mean that you’ll look at all versions of the script like the WGA does before determining who gets credit?
Also consider this: If Amazon Studios is not a WGA signatory, why not set up a set of credits that provide “Written by…” and “Revisions by…” AND give credit to everyone who provided anything valuable? In some movies, there are 15 producer credits. Why limit the writer credits?
C. Set off — For no reason?
Development 17.4. and Option 18.5 Set-off . “We may, in our sole discretion, set-off or withhold any amounts payable to you hereunder against (a) any amounts payable by you to us under this Agreement, or (b) any royalties owed to any third parties with respect to the exercise of the rights you grant under this Agreement.”
http://studios.amazon.com/help/development-agreement
The way this is worded, a writer who gets to the top of the entire Amazon Studios process and has their movie made…may never receive compensation. Is that correct?
If you are going to have a “set off” in both agreements, you should have a specific list of problems that would cause that set off — and a set of remedies.
3. Make your “vetting process” one that will result in the best scripts being made into movies.
Your vetting process is unclear. That makes me think that you have done a tremendous amount of work to set this up, but haven’t had enough experience with the process to articulate it — or even to execute it well.
You’re going to get 20,000 scripts or more. (At this writing, there are 926.) And then another 20,000 revisions. How will scripts move up and be noticed by you? Will it be because some writers have more friends who can vote for them? Or are you truly looking for the best writing? Right now, you have a couple of vague statements about it.
And that brings me to my last recommendation…
4. Put together an advisory group from outside of Amazon.
Obviously, you need to take care of Amazon Studio needs, but there may be ways of doing this that work extremely well for Amazon AND for writers. Get some imput and you may be surprised how much it will improve the process and future success of Amazon Studios.
This won’t take long at all. Select knowledgeable people from each group that will be affected — writers, filmmakers, producers, Studio execs. Present the problems to them and see what their recommendations are.
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To conclude, I’d like to see Amazon Studios succeed and have many writers break into the movie biz because of your efforts. Your first efforts at this are commendable. Please show us that Amazon Studios really does take the writer into consideration as you make your updates to the Development and Option agreements.
Hoping to hear back from you.
Hal Croasmun
ScreenwritingU
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