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Deleted Screenplay Fails To Make Money
mytrip writes to mention the confusing case of screenwriter Nicholas Boyd, who tried to strike it rich by suing SBC, and got more than he bargained for. When an SBC technician accidentally deleted the aspiring screenwriter's work, he brought a lawsuit against the company claiming that a million dollar deal was in the works. Reality disagrees somewhat with his assertions. From the article: "The jury apparently didn't believe the German witness' testimony that a $2.7 million deal was in the works. Jurors found that Boyd could recover out-of-pocket damages of only $60,000 and said that he was responsible for 55 percent of the fault resulting in the deletion of the screenplays ... Both SBC and Boyd appealed. The California state appeals court (second district) eliminated the punitive damages, upheld the compensatory damages--but said Boyd must pay for SBC's legal fees for the appeal, which could easily be in the range of his $27,000 compensatory damages award."
Which you would need to do anyway to register it with the WGA. Oh, wait, my bad. You can now register your screenplay online in whatever file format you wish.
The fee for non-members is $20. The fee for members is $10. Registration lasts for 5 years, and then may be renewed. Protecting your copyrights and getting a back up thrown in!
Seems like a no brainer if you're a screenwriter.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Typically, there are two ways of selling a screenplay.
You described way #1. You pitch an idea and they work out some sort of deal for your idea.
Way #2 is called writing it on "spec". That involves actually writing the full screenplay without having a deal in place, and then shopping it around to studios to see if anyone wants to buy it. Obviously this way is considerably more risky.
The difference is in the pay. Way #1 pays well, but not NEARLY as well as way #2 pays. There is a huge risk to studios in way #1, and in way #2, they KNOW what they are getting. Plus, if you can get two studios interested, you can get them into a bidding war. (I believe "The Long Kiss Goodnight" sold for about $4 million in this situation)
Bottom line: I can't imagine a situation where any studio would offer, or even mention $2 million without having script in hand.