Ally Carter

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Ally Goes to Hollywood

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So…earlier this week, THIS happened.

 

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Here I am pictured with Brownstone Productions, specifically Max Handelman, Elizabeth Banks (yes, that Elizabeth Banks) and Allison Small.

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These are three of the wonderful and very smart people who are working to make Heist Society a movie, and I was so excited to get to go to their offices to talk about the script and the progress they’ve made so far. (Which is incredibly impressive because, again, they’re very smart.)

Now, as soon as I posted this pic Monday afternoon the internet exploded into a chorus of “IS HEIST SOCIETY GOING TO BE A MOVIE!?!”

The answer, as always, is maybe.

Brownstone and Lionsgate (the studio that brought you Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight, and many other great movies) optioned the rights to Heist Society about eighteen months ago.

Are they making progress? Yes! Is it a sure thing yet? Not quite.

But we are getting closer, and I know that even if nothing gets made it won’t be for lack of trying.

Hollywood is a strange place. There are hundreds or even thousands of factors that go into making a movie, and no one person controls them all. There are a ton of moving pieces, and I can assure you that those pieces are being handled by the best possible people, and that they want a movie just as badly as we do.

In the meantime, I had a great time getting to meet them and seeing their offices (which, as you can see, were aca-awesome) …

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It was incredibly cool just to drive across the Universal Studios lot, past places where people like Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, and Stephen Spielberg have worked.

I was also able to take other meetings in town and meet with even more people who are interested in my work. There’s nothing I can share right now, but if and when I can tell you all about it, rest assured I will.

In the meantime, keep on reading and have a great summer!

Ally

 

 

 

 

 

Baking Soda and the Art of Book-to-Film Adaptations

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So this is something I’ve been thinking about writing for a long time. At least a year. Maybe longer. Probably longer. And I’ve decided to write this now because John Green’s PAPER TOWNS opens this weekend, and I’m extremely excited for John and about the movie. Also because the “John Green Hollywood experience” has been on my mind a lot lately.

It never ceases to amaze me how much the book-to-film process both captures the public’s fascination and confuses the heck out of people.

If you write a book – any book – you will hear every day that “you should make a movie out of your book!”

The truth is, most authors dearly want a movie based on their books.

Sometimes because we love movies, but usually because we love money. And there is no greater way of increasing book sales and overall brand awareness than a movie being made and then advertised around the world.

I’ve gotten this question so many times that several years ago I wrote this post that describes how the book-to-film process works. Sure, it’s a few years old now, but it’s just as true today as it was then. So if you’re confused or just interested to see how and why books get turned into films, go read that first.

If there is one thing that authors hear more than “you should make your book into a movie” it is “you should make sure that, if your book becomes a movie, they don’t ruin it.”

Setting aside the fact that no film adaptation has ever changed one word of a novel–that the novel is and will always be the same– today I’m going to try to address a far more delicate topic: not how movies are made, but how GOOD movies are made.

 

Disclaimer: everything is relative

The first thing that makes this difficult, of course, is that “good” is a relative term. There are movies that I hated that other people loved. And vice versa.

Another factor is that sometimes movies are good because they stayed true to the book. Sometimes they’re bad for that same reason. Sometimes the result is a movie that isn’t true to the book but is good anyway—it’s just a different kind of good than the book is.

 

Newsflash: Books and movies are different

Overall, the first thing that everyone needs to know and remember and remind themselves of daily is that BOOKS AND MOVIES ARE DIFFERENT CREATIVE MEDIUMS.

Someone (I don’t know who) once said that “making a movie out of a book is like making a song out of a painting”. It’s not exactly that. But it’s pretty darn close.

So they’re going to be different.

– Books are longer and can cover more ground.
– Books can go into a character’s head.
– Books have unlimited budgets.

And what is, in my opinion, the biggest difference of all:

– Books only have to please two people: the author and the editor.

But because movies are so incredibly expensive (THE FAULT IN OUR STARS was considered a bargain with a pricetag of $12 million), there are a lot of people keeping tabs on that money. So there are a lot of people you have to please. And that makes the process more difficult. It just does.

Now, not a lot of readers get that. And, furthermore, not all authors get that. But most of us do.

I know that watching a movie won’t be like reading the audiobook—I’m not going to be able to open to page one and read along. That would make for a terrible movie.

But I think that when Hollywood adaptations go off the rails it is because this point – this “books and films are by their very definition different” point – gets misconstrued.

Because if there is one thing that anyone who pays attention to film adaptations will tell you, it’s that not all changes are equal.

 

Baking soda is not baking powder

I love to cook and, especially, to bake. I was raised by perhaps the World’s Best Cook. (It’s true. Everybody says so.)

And growing up out in the country thirty miles from the nearest Wal-Mart my mother taught me early on that you’re not always going to have what you need in the pantry.

If a cookie recipe calls for pecans and all you have is walnuts? Fine! If it calls for M&Ms and you’ve got chocolate chips? Well, that might work.

But only a fool would substitute baking soda for baking powder.

Why? Because that changes the chemistry and will throw the whole thing off whack and out of balance.

Good book-to-film adaptations know the difference between Baking Soda Changes and Walnut Changes. They know better than to mess with the chemistry.

I’ve probably discussed this with at least fifty authors.  (I wouldn’t be surprised if the number is closer to 100.) And I’ve worked with some of the smartest people in Hollywood. And without a doubt the hardest part of adapting a novel is watching out for the Baking Soda Changes. (Not that anyone else uses that term. Yet.)

 

What is a Baking Soda Change?

This is where it gets hard, folks.

I wish I could say that the chemistry of a story is based entirely on, for example, character, and any change to anything about a character will be a Baking Soda Change.

Except… that’s not true.

It’s not a secret that when HEIST SOCIETY was under option at Warner Brothers they intended to age the characters up from their teens into their early twenties. (Read a full post on that topic here.)

In my opinion, for those characters and that story, that was a Walnut Change.

Why? Because Kat was always an old soul inside a teenager’s body. Her character arc wasn’t going to be affected by that change. If anything, it might have been a little more poignant, because I remember being 22 or 23 and having everyone still treat me like a kid – sometimes still feeling like a kid. But I knew that I wasn’t, and so I was straddling two worlds in that way.

Now, am I saying that I think aging characters up is always a Walnut Change? NO. No. N-O.

I mean, seriously, I do not think that. At all.

In fact, in most cases I do think it’s probably a Baking Soda change, especially the younger the characters are in the book.

After all, a sixteen-year-old is in many ways far more similar to the person they are going to be at twenty-one than the person they were at eleven. Plus, oftentimes the plots of the books don’t make sense if a tween is involved vs. a teen vs. a twenty-something.

For example, I can forgive eleven-year-old Harry Potter for going after Professor Quirrell and not telling a teacher what was up far more easily than I could forgive a sixteen-year-old Harry for making that same call.

I guess the key question is this: “Will this change impact other aspects of the story?”

Will this change the chemistry?

“We found a great young actress for Hermione but she doesn’t need braces.”
—Walnut Change

“We decided to set Hogwarts in Ireland instead of Scotland.”
–Walnut Change (an unnecessary change, but a Walnut Change nonetheless)

“We decided to give Harry a spunky kid brother because there was a kid brother in Jurassic World and everyone loves a kid brother.”
–Baking Soda Change

 

Why Baking Soda Changes Happen

In most instances, people don’t know they’re making a Baking Soda change. And no one – I do mean no one – sets out to make a bad movie.

I think that mostly they are honest mistakes made by well-intentioned people who just don’t foresee the consequences.

There is a domino effect to Baking Soda Changes. That is actually their defining factor. Baking Soda Changes multiply and carry on, and people often don’t see it until it’s too late.

This is why I think the first rule of book-to-film adaptations should be simple: first, do no harm.

One of the most sought-after screenwriting teams in Hollywood right now is Michael Weber & Scott Neustadter who did the adaptations of Fault and Paper Towns. Now, I don’t know them—have never met them. But I’m going to guess that this rule is pretty important to them (and also the producers and studio execs who are giving them notes on John’s projects), and that is why those adaptations are incredibly good. Not just true to the book—but good.

Make no mistake, there are a lot of cooks in a movie’s kitchen. Everyone gives notes. Everyone wants to see their idea make it onto the screen. And that makes for a lot of potential places where the chemistry can get way out of whack.

 

So Why Do Authors Let This Happen?!

Power.

Clearly, all of the examples here are ludicrous because no one was ever going to mess with Harry Potter in any of those ways. Why? Because it was Harry-Freaking-Potter.

It had the largest fandom the world had ever known, and that meant two things.

  1. We don’t want to tick them off.
  2. Millions of people are obsessed with this. Something here might be working.

But no book franchise will ever have power like that again. Few even come close.

Those who do – those mega franchises like Twilight, Hunger Games, and the John Green novels – result in film adaptations that are likely to follow the books fairly closely because studios are afraid of what will happen if they don’t. But at any given time there are maybe ten authors on the planet with that kind of power.

So what about authors/books that don’t have that kind of power?

Some will be fortunate enough to work with people who want to hear what the creator has to say, to get feedback from the people who know that readers are essentially a focus group that has been going on for years and sometimes include millions of fans.

Some will not be that fortunate.

All an author can do is carefully choose who we get into bed with and hope that they really, truly get the story and the characters and the world and how all of these things work with each other — that they understand the book’s chemistry.

After all, books and films are different.

But, ultimately, it is the kind of different that matters.

 

 

 

From Tumblr…on movies

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Hi all,

Reposting this from theallycarter.tumblr.com:

 

When you make your movie, would you ever consider letting a huge fan being a character/actor in your movies? (: I’ve been doing live Theatre for most of my life (I’m 18), and I’ve grown with the Gallagher Girls, and I would love to be apart of it. (:

ASKED BY effervescenteliza

We get a lot of questions about movies. Or potential movies. It is nice and very flattering, but I’m afraid it doesn’t change the reality in which we live.

There MIGHT be a movie based on the Gallagher Girls or Heist Society someday. Maybe. Both properties are under option and people I respect are working toward that goal.

BUT…I am not involved in that process. Nor am I likely to ever be. It simply isn’t the way these things work.

If by some extreme freak circumstance the movies do get made and they have some open casting call and I hear about it (three HUGE ifs) then I will scream it from the rooftops.

In the meantime all I can do is write more books. So that’s what I’m going to do.

Thanks for reading!
Ally

TFiOS

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Hi everybody,

So…I’ve got my tickets to see The Fault in Our Stars today. Do you guys have yours?

If, by some chance, you’ve been living under a rock for two years. This is the movie adaptation of John Green’s runaway tearjerker…I mean bestseller.

Probably the question I get asked the most is WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE YOUR BOOKS INTO MOVIES.

Boy, do I hate this question.

Not because I don’t WANT my books to be movies–in fact, the very OPPOSITE is true. It’s just that this question always reminds me how utterly helpless an author is in this process.

I’ve had all of my books optioned for film. Many times. (Some times that were never even made public, so you guys didn’t even know about it.)

It’s not that:

1. I don’t want it.
2. We aren’t working to make it happen.
3. We are actively trying to thwart anyone’s dream of being cast as Cammie and then falling in love with the boy cast to play Zach and then living happily ever after.

I know you guys. I know how your minds work. And I know you want this.

What I don’t think anyone knows is that I want it even more.

And yet I truly, completely cannot make it happen. It isn’t something that is in my control and it never, ever will be.

I don’t have $50 million to fund it. I don’t run a studio. I don’t have a college bff who is now running her own self-funded production company.

All I can do is option things to the best possible people (People like Elizabeth Banks and Lionsgate who have HEIST SOCIETY and Tonik Films who has Gallagher Girls.) And hope for the best.

Oh, and I can go see YA movies. Because the best possible thing that any of us can do is to support 1. the books by buying and reading them and then actively telling our friends to read them and 2. supporting the other YA adaptations already in theaters. Because, let me tell you, there are a lot of people in Hollywood who WANT movies like Divergent and TFiOS and MAZE RUNNER to fail. They don’t want YA movies taking up development dollars and slots in theaters. They don’t want the competition and they will look for any reason to say “No more of these stupid teen movies.”

They will say it. They say it all the time.

So how do we shut them up? By buying a ticket if you can afford to. By being active on social media and renting the movie as soon as it’s out if we can’t.

Now I’ve got to go apply waterproof eye makeup and go see the movie.

-Ally

 

 

Magnificent Movie Monday

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Hey Everyone!

There has been so much excitement around Ally Carter headquarters because of the Heist & GG movie options!

(If you missed the announcements you can catch up here: Heist Movie Option & Gallagher Girls Movie Option)

All this movie talk has me wondering…..

What is your favorite movie?

What book do wish they would make into a movie?

 

As I promised last week we are working on posting a super awesome super long excerpt from United We Spy so keep checking back!!!!

 

Hope everyone has a great week!!!

xoxo,

Shellie

P.S. I posted some of your pictures of Ally Carter books in fun places on Ally’s tumbler page last Friday!!

P.S.S. Hope everyone who signed up for the read-a-thon has a lot of fun!

Heist Society optioned by Pitch Perfect producers

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Hi everyone,

Secret #2 has broken, and boy is it Aca-Awesome…

Heist Society has been optioned by Lionsgate (yes, the studio that brought us Hunger Games) and Max Handelman & Elizabeth Banks (yes, Effie Trinket herself)!

Read the full story here.

As most of you probably know, Pitch Perfect was my favorite movie of last year.

There are too few movies that feature women–much less movies that feature bright, capable YOUNG women.  Pitch Perfect has been one of very few exceptions to that in recent history, and so I am ecstatic to entrust Heist Society to the people who made that movie possible.

It is all still VERY new, but I have spoken with Max and Elizabeth on the phone, and let me tell you, they are so smart and have such a great grasp of the material that I am absolutely thrilled with the possibilities.

And now…because I know you guys have questions:

Will a movie happen? We cannot say for sure. An option is just that–an option to someday make the material into a movie. It is absolutely not a guarantee. But I am optimistic.

Who will be in the movie? We are still a world away from knowing that.

Will this version of Heist Society age up the characters like last version was going to? Possibly. I don’t think anybody knows for sure yet, but I would certainly be fine with that.

Can I try out for the movie? Again, that is still ages away.

Who is your dream Kat? Hale? I’m pretty sure that the producers and the studio are going to focus on getting the right script first, so I’m going to focus on that as well.

Will you be involved in the movie?  Not officially, but I have a good feeling that 1. Max and Elizabeth have a great respect for the material and 2. They will be open to ideas and suggestions.

Does this mean you will write more Heist books (after Perfect Scoundrels)?  That has always been my hope. I love these characters and this series, and I have no intention of saying goodbye to them any time soon.

And that’s it, folks. Secret number 2.

I hope you’re as excited about it as I am.

 

-Ally

Movie try outs

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What follows is an honest, genuine, and hopefully helpful post about having “try outs” for movies.

I get this question a lot. As in every day. As in multiple times a day.

In fact, I’ve already answered it several times, but such is the way of the world. I will answer it here and…you know…tomorrow someone will ask it again. And yet I feel myself compelled to answer it tonight because tonight is the night I snap.

Okay. Here goes.

Again, I don’t want to be flippant or condescending. I’m trying to HONESTLY answer your question.

So the 100% truth is that there are not—nor will there ever be—open auditions for movies based on books. At least not my books.

I think they did it for Harry Potter but, dude, that was Harry Freaking Potter. The normal rules DO NOT APPLY.

If there is a movie (which right now there are no movies in the works), then the studio and production company will likely hire someone do to the casting. The casting person will work with TALENT AGENCIES who will say “hey, I have this super talented actress” and so on.

Also, the producers and studio will likely have someone in mind. Will they get that person? Maybe. Maybe not. Will that be the case for every role? Probably not. Does this mean “Ally is opposed to casting an unknown as Cammie! Ally sucks!!!!”

No. It really doesn’t mean that.

It just means that basically, (and, again, I don’t mean to sound flippant, but it’s true), a $30 million dollar movie doesn’t happen in the same way a school play happens.

It just doesn’t.

It can’t.

So…you want to be an actress.  Great! Awesome! Then I’d suggest you get to work building your resume with local theater and maybe commercials. I’d recommend you start preparing TO BE AN ACTRESS. That may mean moving to Los Angeles. It may mean classes. It may mean head shots and a huge investment of both time and resources.

It does not mean finding out when “try outs” are because, again, 1: there is no movie in the works at this time. and 2: if and when there is a movie, there will likely be no try outs. There will be auditions and those auditions will likely go to people who are pursing acting professionally and have professional representation.

I genuinely hope this helps,

Ally

PS: and please remember, I’m not involved in the movie industry. I write books. I don’t have any real advice on becoming a working, agented actress beyond what anyone can find on Google. But Google is a pretty darn good place to start.

Retro throw-back post: How Movies Happen

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Hi everyone!

It is the nature of life, I guess, that there will just be some questions a person (especially an author) hears more than others.  For me, the two biggies are about books and movies.  As many of you know, I have talked about the subject of movies a lot throughout the years, but new readers often miss those posts.

For that reason, I’ve been wanting to try something for several months now, and I think today is the day.  So instead of me writing a whole new entry on a subject I’ve covered before, I’m going to post it anew.

Let’s call it a retro throw-back post.

Let’s start with this post from January 2011.

Enjoy.

-Ally

 

 HOW MOVIES HAPPEN
originally posted here on January 8, 2011

Write a book–any book–and I promise someone will say “is there going to be a movie?”  Or “Why don’t YOU make a movie” (I guess because I bought that  Flip video camera…)

There are a lot of misconceptions about the book business, but nothing compares to the misconceptions surrounding the book-to-movie process.

I’ve had three different film options with three different studios/production companies, and yet I still don’t know everything there is to know about how and why movies happen.  But I’m going to share with you today what I do know in the hopes that maybe some of these misconceptions might go away for a day or two.

 

A DISCLAIMER

The very first thing you need to understand is that no two situations
are the same.  This is where a lot of
the misconceptions come from, I think.

I say “authors don’t have the power or money to make a movie themselves” and you say but I read James Patterson is doing that!

I say “authors don’t have any input in the casting process” and you say but what about JK Rowling?

I say “authors have no control over the script” and you say but Susanne Collins wrote the screenplay for Hunger Games!

All of these are excpetions to the rule.  All of them.  And they’re all very good examples of…

 

TWO KINDS OF OPTIONS

Type 1:  If the book is an established blockbuster on the scale of Harry Potter or Twilight when the movie deal is done then that author has far more control than usual because in that situation Hollywood NEEDS THEM.

If, like Susanne Collins, the author has a background in screenwriting then he or she might even get a shot at the script.  (note: the Hunger Games script has been given to a Hollywood screenwriter for rewrites.)

These types of blockbusters are, by definition, very rare.  So these types of movie deals are even rarer.  They are anomolies, outliers, flukes.  And they are the function of power and timing.  If the deal is done before the book becomes a world-wide phenomenon, then the usual rules will likely apply (because those were the rules when the terms were negotiated.)

Type 2:  If the book is not a mega-success at the time it’s negotiated or if the author is not a well-established movie draw (like Nicholas Sparks) then chances are that the author is not in a position of power.

Of course, sometimes there will be multiple studios interested which certainly helps the author, but for the most part things like script approval or producing credits are completely, 100% off the table.

Why?  Because we’re book people, not movie people.  Also, frankly, because Hollywood already has too many cooks in its kitchen.  It takes millions of dollars to make a movie and with that come about a million hoops to jump through and people to please.

As my film agent explained to me during the Heist Society movie auction “No studio is going to invest millions of dollars in something and let the author keep the right to pull the plug on it.”

That’s why script approval is laughable for someone like me.  That’s why–with VERY FEW EXCEPTIONS–no author is ever going to be involved in casting.

Really, it all depends on the terms of your…

 

OPTION

If there is a studio or production company who likes your book and wants to make a movie from it, they can either buy the film rights outright or they can “option” the film rights.

A film option is like putting the book in layaway.  They aren’t buying the right to make it into a movie; they’re buying the right to THINK ABOUT making it into a movie.

They don’t have to make it–not at all.  But they have a set period of time (usually a year or 18 months) to think about it and, most importantly, work on a…

 

SCRIPT

The script is king.

It doesn’t matter how well a book is doing; it doesn’t matter how awesome a book is; what matters in terms of getting a movie made is getting a script that people like and are willing to sign off on.

Because until the script is right, then there’s nothing to take to…

 

TALENT

This is one more example of how things in this process can and will vary.  After all, sometimes books are optioned with some kind of talent “attached” to the project. (Example: Miley Cyrus was attached to WINGS very early on.)

Sometimes the book is optioned with no talent officially attached and, instead, the producers will get the script just right then possibly take it to directors and then the director will work on casting.

There is no right way or best way or “guaranteed” way to get a movie made.  Hollywood is not Oz.  There are a whole lot of yellow brick roads and every one of them–every. single. one–is at the mercy of…

 

HEAT and TIMING

Let’s say there’s a really great script based on your favorite book…  Let’s say there’s an actress who is amazingly talented, very charismatic, and utterly perferct for the role…  So that actress is going to get the role, right?

Maybe.  Maybe not.  You see, if that actress is already booked up for the next three years, then odds are the studio isn’t going to wait on her.

Or maybe they can get their first choice actress but only at the same time as their third choice leading man?

Maybe your favorite actress had a movie bomb last weekend and the studio now sees her as box office Kryptonite?

Maybe the studio has three projects in the pipeline with another actress, so they’re far more concerned with making HER a big star…

What most people fail to see is that movies aren’t magic.  Movies are very expensive investments and very practical endeavors.  The producers, executives, and people in charge are going to make their decisions off of more than hair color, is what I’m trying to say.

Who’s hot?
Who’s cold?  Who’s getting good buzz for a project that no one has seen
yet and who had a movie that tanked overseas?  These are just a few of the factors that will go into the decision.  And besides, the odds of the right director, the perfect
actress, the ideal location and  leading man all being
available at the exact same time are pretty rare.

Talent matters, don’t get me wrong.  But it seems to me that availablity and heat matter more.

 

SO WHY OPTION ANYTHING IF YOU CAN’T CONTROL THE FINISHED PRODUCT?

I can’t speak for every author, so I’ll just speak for myself.

I love movies.  And walking into a dark theater and watching one of my stories up there on the screen is a dream I’ve had for ages.  Do I want that movie to be GOOD?  Of course.  Do I personally have the power to make a movie happen (good, bad or otherwise)?  No.  I just don’t.  And very, very, very few authors ever do.

The other reason most authors are willing to option their material is simple: a movie is basically a 2 hour commercial for the book.  And
it’s in most author’s best interest to give the books the chance for that kind of
exposure.


THINGS TO REMEMBER

Movies are made by hundreds of people doing just as many different jobs.  And the odds of any movie getting made are oh-so-incredibly rare.

Of the writers I know, a fairly big percentage (I’d say maybe 75 or 80%) have things under option in Hollywood.  Only a few will ever see anything actually made.  Even once they finish a script and start talking to directors or signing stars, there are still a ton of factors that have to fall into place.

Basically, the odds of getting a movie made are long.  The odds of getting a GOOD movie made are miniscule.

But we keep trying…

We keep trying all the time.

 

-Ally

 

 

Heist Society movie news!

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Hi everyone!  And a happy Fourth of July Weekend to everyone in the States.

I’m back from an amazing tour for UNCOMMON CRIMINALS.  It was so much fun talking to everyone who came out to get their books signed.  The stores were so supportive and most of them still have a ton of autographed copies of all of my books, so if you’re in the market for a signed copy, call around.  I bet you can find one and get it shipped to you!

Of course, a huge part of tour is always doing Q&A with the crowds that came out.  And, of course, at every single stop, someone would ask if either Heist Society or Gallagher Girls were going to become a movie.  And at every single stop I had to say that there really was no news that I could discuss.

Well…then everything changed with these words from The Hollywood Reporter.

Drew Barrymore to Produce and Direct Young-Adult Thriller ‘Heist Society’ (Exclusive)

That’s the headline that someone emailed me late Thursday and, with that, everything got kind of crazy.  (read the full article here.)

As I’ve said many, many, many times before, authors have no role in the movie making process.  I have spoken with the producers a couple of times but not in many, many months.  So while I knew they were in discussions with Drew Barrymore to become involved in the process I wasn’t sure it was official.

The next morning I was on the phone with Amy from MTV’s Hollywood Crush, chatting about the news.  (Read the full interview here.)  Over the course of the day I got dozens of messages via email and twitter from people wishing me well.

I really wish I had more news to share, but right now I honestly don’t.  As I told MTV, I haven’t spoken with the producers, the studio, or Drew.  I don’t know how the script is looking or if they anticipate moving forward with casting or anything in the near future.

What I DO know is this: the project appears to still be alive! (Yay!)  But it takes SO MANY things to fall into place for a movie to actually be made, that , while this news is exciting, it doesn’t mean that we for sure will see a Heist Society movie.

All I know is that people are working hard and still enjoying the project, and I’m very, very grateful for that.

 

Thanks for the kind words and well wishes and, again, have a happy holiday weekend.

-Ally

 

ps:  if you want to know about the Gallagher Girls becoming a movie, check out the FAQ page of this site.

How movies happen

by 104 Comments

Write a book–any book–and I promise someone will say “is there going to be a movie?”  Or “Why don’t YOU make a movie” (I guess because I bought that  Flip video camera…)

There are a lot of misconceptions about the book business, but nothing compares to the misconceptions surrounding the book-to-movie process.

I’ve had three different film options with three different studios/production companies, and yet I still don’t know everything there is to know about how and why movies happen.  But I’m going to share with you today what I do know in the hopes that maybe some of these misconceptions might go away for a day or two.

 

A DISCLAIMER

The very first thing you need to understand is that no two situations
are the same.  This is where a lot of
the misconceptions come from, I think.  

I say “authors don’t have the power or money to make a movie themselves” and you say but I read James Patterson is doing that!

I say “authors don’t have any input in the casting process” and you say but what about JK Rowling?

I say “authors have no control over the script” and you say but Susanne Collins wrote the screenplay for Hunger Games!

All of these are excpetions to the rule.  All of them.  And they’re all very good examples of…

 

TWO KINDS OF OPTIONS

Type 1:  If the book is an established blockbuster on the scale of Harry Potter or Twilight when the movie deal is done then that author has far more control than usual because in that situation Hollywood NEEDS THEM.  

If, like Susanne Collins, the author has a background in screenwriting then he or she might even get a shot at the script.  (note: the Hunger Games script has been given to a Hollywood screenwriter for rewrites.)

These types of blockbusters are, by definition, very rare.  So these types of movie deals are even rarer.  They are anomolies, outliers, flukes.  And they are the function of power and timing.  If the deal is done before the book becomes a world-wide phenomenon, then the usual rules will likely apply (because those were the rules when the terms were negotiated.) 

Type 2:  If the book is not a mega-success at the time it’s negotiated or if the author is not a well-established movie draw (like Nicholas Sparks) then chances are that the author is not in a position of power.

Of course, sometimes there will be multiple studios interested which certainly helps the author, but for the most part things like script approval or producing credits are completely, 100% off the table.

Why?  Because we’re book people, not movie people.  Also, frankly, because Hollywood already has too many cooks in its kitchen.  It takes millions of dollars to make a movie and with that come about a million hoops to jump through and people to please. 

As my film agent explained to me during the Heist Society movie auction “No studio is going to invest millions of dollars in something and let the author keep the right to pull the plug on it.”

That’s why script approval is laughable for someone like me.  That’s why–with VERY FEW EXCEPTIONS–no author is ever going to be involved in casting.

Really, it all depends on the terms of your…

 

OPTION

If there is a studio or production company who likes your book and wants to make a movie from it, they can either buy the film rights outright or they can “option” the film rights.

A film option is like putting the book in layaway.  They aren’t buying the right to make it into a movie; they’re buying the right to THINK ABOUT making it into a movie.

They don’t have to make it–not at all.  But they have a set period of time (usually a year or 18 months) to think about it and, most importantly, work on a…

 

SCRIPT

The script is king. 

It doesn’t matter how well a book is doing; it doesn’t matter how awesome a book is; what matters in terms of getting a movie made is getting a script that people like and are willing to sign off on.

Because until the script is right, then there’s nothing to take to…

 

TALENT

This is one more example of how things in this process can and will vary.  After all, sometimes books are optioned with some kind of talent “attached” to the project. (Example: Miley Cyrus was attached to WINGS very early on.) 

Sometimes the book is optioned with no talent officially attached and, instead, the producers will get the script just right then possibly take it to directors and then the director will work on casting.

There is no right way or best way or “guaranteed” way to get a movie made.  Hollywood is not Oz.  There are a whole lot of yellow brick roads and every one of them–every. single. one–is at the mercy of…

 

HEAT and TIMING

Let’s say there’s a really great script based on your favorite book…  Let’s say there’s an actress who is amazingly talented, very charismatic, and utterly perferct for the role…  So that actress is going to get the role, right?

Maybe.  Maybe not.  You see, if that actress is already booked up for the next three years, then odds are the studio isn’t going to wait on her.

Or maybe they can get their first choice actress but only at the same time as their third choice leading man? 

Maybe your favorite actress had a movie bomb last weekend and the studio now sees her as box office Kryptonite?

Maybe the studio has three projects in the pipeline with another actress, so they’re far more concerned with making HER a big star…

What most people fail to see is that movies aren’t magic.  Movies are very expensive investments and very practical endeavors.  The producers, executives, and people in charge are going to make their decisions off of more than hair color, is what I’m trying to say.  

Who’s hot? 
Who’s cold?  Who’s getting good buzz for a project that no one has seen
yet and who had a movie that tanked overseas?  These are just a few of the factors that will go into the decision.  And besides, the odds of the right director, the perfect
actress, the ideal location and  leading man all being
available at the exact same time are pretty rare.

Talent matters, don’t get me wrong.  But it seems to me that availablity and heat matter more.

 

SO WHY OPTION ANYTHING IF YOU CAN’T CONTROL THE FINISHED PRODUCT?

I can’t speak for every author, so I’ll just speak for myself.

I love movies.  And walking into a dark theater and watching one of my stories up there on the screen is a dream I’ve had for ages.  Do I want that movie to be GOOD?  Of course.  Do I personally have the power to make a movie happen (good, bad or otherwise)?  No.  I just don’t.  And very, very, very few authors ever do.

The other reason most authors are willing to option their material is simple: a movie is basically a 2 hour commercial for the book.  And
it’s in most author’s best interest to give the books the chance for that kind of
exposure.


THINGS TO REMEMBER

Movies are made by hundreds of people doing just as many different jobs.  And the odds of any movie getting made are oh-so-incredibly rare.

Of the writers I know, a fairly big percentage (I’d say maybe 75 or 80%) have things under option in Hollywood.  Only a few will ever see anything actually made.  Even once they finish a script and start talking to directors or signing stars, there are still a ton of factors that have to fall into place.

Basically, the odds of getting a movie made are long.  The odds of getting a GOOD movie made are miniscule.

But we keep trying…

We keep trying all the time.

 

-Ally