An "Epic" Decision

For every screenwriter, deciding what project to tackle next can be difficult. Assessing what story to spend the next three or six months (even upwards of a year or two) working on is no small task. The stakes are even higher if you decide to go the epic route.

Why? Simply put: epics are harder to sell. They are almost always huge in scope and almost just as often period pieces. In short, they are expensive to produce, and studios and production companies understandably don't want to shell out tens of millions for something that historically offers limited returns.

If you are beyond the point of having a good writing sample and targeting buyers only, it's a very tough decision. You could be looking at only a handful of buyers when you are finished writing. These would be studio level folks, and you'd be pretty much ruling out any indy or smaller production companies who work with budgets of $10 million and under. Granted you could earn great fans of your work and become eligible for assignments based on your ability to craft an epic, but very few people want to spend a year on something they don't think has a chance in the marketplace. And if they do, they could be considered masochistic.

This is the dilemma Joe and I faced when deciding what script to write next. We'd met a very competent management company in Los Angeles, with good clients and a track record of sales. This was definitely the kind of place we'd want to be in business with. They'd read some of our material and wanted to work with us, though we were not signed clients. We could sense we weren't their top priority, but over the period of a few months we discussed different ideas and kept coming back to one: it was an epic, period piece. We submitted an outline to the managers, and they said they'd like to see us do a draft. There wasn't much other guidance, but it was a topic we'd been itching to write so we thought why not...

But the practical considerations kept haunting us. What if we spent six months writing this and the managers didn't like it, didn't believe in it, or were busy with other things? Where would that leave us? We'd have a $50 million+ movie and only a handful of outlets to which to take it. Sure, some agents and producers might like the writing and be willing to find or extend to us work based on that sample, but we already have such samples. In fact, it's a sample that got us the attention of this management company.

I usually advise people who are mulling over several ideas to proceed with the smaller one, the more commercial one. So why did we go against our instincts and opt for the big project: the real difference is the interest of the management company. We're taking a chance (indeed, every spec effort is a chance) that this quality company will work with us and promote the script when it's complete. Are we going out on a limb? Yes, maybe way out, but it's a project we believe in and with the interest of a company that can make sales we felt it was worth the risk.

We'll let you know in the coming months if the risk paid off...

-Randy