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By Bob Tarantino

March 27, 2014 

• Contracts

• Publishing

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As Torontonians know, we are in the midst of a mayoral election campaign; in all the excitement surrounding the candidate debates, it may have slipped into the rearview mirror that last month it was announced that the film rights for Crazytown: the Rob Ford Story, Robin Doolittle’s bestselling book about Toronto’s current mayor, had been sold to a Toronto-based production company. What are some of the considerations to be taken into account when structuring and negotiating an agreement to make a movie based on a book?

• Option vs Purchase. Most often, the deal to make a movie based on a book takes the form of an exclusive “option” agreement. What that means is that the producer has acquired not the exclusive right to make the movie, but has acquired the exclusive right to purchase the right to make the movie. In other words, there are usually some conditions precedent which the producer needs to satisfy before they can actually go ahead and make the movie, the most important condition (from the author’s perspective) being the payment of a “purchase” price. Why are agreements structured as options? Because the producer usually needs time to make arrangements to actually finance the making of the movie – and while the producer is running around trying to gather the money to make the movie, they need to “secure” the exclusive rights in the book, so that the author doesn’t go and give the rights to some other producer. By entering into an option agreement, the producer is basically acquiring the right to go to potential investors and financiers of the movie and say “hey, I’ve got the exclusive right to make a movie based on this book – want to be a part of it?”

• Who Owns the Rights?  For the film producer, it is critical to ascertain who actually controls the right to make an audio-visual project based on the book (what I’ll refer to throughout this post as the “AV rights”). Often the publisher of the book will have acquired the AV rights in their publishing contract with the author – but it certainly is not unusual for an author to have retained the AV rights. Even if a producer is able to satisfy themselves that the author has the AV rights, it will be prudent to obtain from the publisher a quitclaim or release wherein the publisher confirms that they do not control the AV rights.

• Option Fee. The option fee is the amount which the producer pays to acquire the exclusive option. This fee is usually paid on signing of the option agreement (or very soon thereafter), and is often a relatively nominal amount – but is entirely open to negotiation. Only blockbuster bestsellers will see an option fee in the high five- or (even more rarely) six-figure range. An ancillary issue is whether the option fee is “applicable” against the purchase price – in other words, when the producer has to make payment of the purchase price (which we’ll discuss below) do they get to reduce the amount of the purchase price by the amount of the option fee (and any payments for extensions, also discussed below) which they have already paid? It is often the case that the initial option fee is “applied” against (i.e., reduces) the purchase price, but subsequent payments to extend the option period beyond its initial duration are not – again, however, the point is really a function of the negotiations between the parties.

• Option Period and Payments for Extensions. How long the initial option period lasts for is likewise subject to negotiation, though there are some general parameters: producers will usually be reluctant to enter into an option period which is less than one year, and authors will usually be reluctant to agreement to an option period which is longer than two years – so an initial option period of 12-18th months is fairly common. Given the vagaries of the film/TV production process, however, the “initial” option period is usually just a starting point: producers will often want the ability to extend the option period beyond its initial duration – but it will cost them, and they will not be able to extend the option period indefinitely. The amount of any extension payment is usually a multiple of the initial option fee.

• Purchase Price – Amount and Form. Here’s where things get funky. The purchase price is the amount which the producer has to pay in order to actually obtain the exclusive right to make the movie – payment of the purchase price is what converts the producer’s right from an option to an actual conveyance of rights. The amount of the purchase price is often related to its form: Is the purchase price simply a flat dollar amount which is pre-agreed by the parties at the time of entering into the contract? Or will the amount of the purchase price be determined by reference to a formula which takes into account the budget of the film or TV project? Authors will often want the purchase price to be determined by reference to a formula: the producer making a $3 million movie based on the book is a very different proposition than the producer making a $30 million movie based on the book. By contrast, the producer will often want to place some restrictions on the size of the purchase price they need to pay – and so the purchase price often is expressed as a percentage (usually somewhere between 1.5-4%) of the budget of the film/TV show, subject to a floor and ceiling on the amount. That way, the author knows they won’t get less than $x, and the producer knows they won’t have to pay more than $y. Easy enough, but which budget will be used as the reference point? The “in-going” budget which is used at the start of principal photography, or the “final” budget after all costs have actually been expended? Will there be any exclusions from the budget which is used to calculate the purchase price (such as deferred payments owing to cast and crew who agreed to forego an upfront payment in an effort to get the movie made)?

• Purchase Price – Timing and Process. How the purchase price gets paid and how the option actually gets exercised should be the subject of close attention when drafting an option agreement. The process and payment mechanic (e.g., in order to exercise the option, the producer has to deliver a written notice to this particular person at this particular address, along with payment of the purchase price in this particular way (such as by money order or wire transfer)) should be spelled out in detail. Where the purchase price is to be determined by reference to the budget, there should also be a mechanism which allows for a portion of the purchase price to be paid “up-front” upon exercise of the option (because the relevant amount of the budget might not be known at the time of exercise of the option) with a “catch-up” payment to be made later on, once the final amount of the budget can be determined. Authors will want the option agreement to include a mechanism which makes it clear that the commencement of principal photography is deemed to be an automatic exercise of the option, necessitating payment of the purchase price.   Read More