Thursday, July 26, 2007

Craig Mazin blogs about the huge wads of money that the pro monkeys get paid in LA. Daunting numbers indeed. For comparison, many established Canadian writers would be happy to get paid what US "baby writers" are getting paid. Especially if they could get paid that without a long, knock-down-drag-out negotiation with the producer.

Which is probably why some of my best writer friends are doing a lot of their work for LA producers.

Fortunately, the WGC's basic agreement has an escalator clause -- on production, you get paid "production bonus" that is a percentage of the budget. As a development exec, I was always fond of escalators because they are fundamentally fair. If we agree on, say, 2 1/2% of budget, then if the movie comes in at a million dollar budget, you don't get any additional money, because $25,000 is less than the scale payment for a script. But if you write something awesome, that garners a ten million dollar budget, then you deserve $250,000.

Labels: money for something

8:22 AM

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