Authors

Why It’s Bad To Sell A Screenplay For $1 Million Dollars – Jeffrey Alan Schechter

Filmcourage

Published

November 4, 2022

Jeffrey Alan Schechter, Author/Screenwriter/Founder of Writers Room Pro: If I had it all to do over again, knowing what I know now, I would have preferred not to sell a spec screenplay.

Film Courage: What script did you sell for a million dollars?

Jeffrey: Wow. So the script I sold for a million dollars was something called Stanley’s Cup and this is at this point, it’s kind of ancient history, it was 1995. I was approached by a producer who had this idea for a hockey movie and he went to another writer who was not available. I guess my agent at that time felt I had a similar writing style to the writer he really wanted and so he agreed to develop it with me. We developed it out together. I remember reading it before doing the big distribution and I had this weird experience. I read the script and got teary at the end at the climax of my own story, which really doesn’t happen that much. Maybe while watching my Bar Mitzvah video I’ll get a little weepy, but while reading the script generally I’m not affected that way. I went Oh, I think I might have something here because it just touched me in some weird way even though I had literally just finished the script, I was just rereading it. We went out with the script and almost immediately started getting interest. We went out with the script on a Tuesday and almost immediately started getting interest and it was kind of by Thursday night there was an offer on the table from I believe it was from Disney for $250,000, which was more money than I’d ever seen in my entire life.

I’d been working for the previous couple of years so I was a working screenwriter at that time but I hadn’t sold a spec so $250,000 at in one chunk seemed a really swell idea to me. I get a call from my agent (this is on that Thursday night) who says I don’t think you should take it. I went Really? He goes I think there’s more money out there. I went Okay. So I just talk it over with my wife and go We’re going to say no to $250,000? and she’s Okay, let’s do this. They turned it down and then the next day I was getting phone calls every 25-30 minutes. It’s There’s now an offer for three, there’s an offer for 375, that’s an offer for 450 and it just kept going up until it finally hit eight hundred thousand dollars against a million one. In the business that’s considered a million dollar spec sale because if the movie had gotten made there would have been that extra…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).

BIO:

After moving to Los Angeles, Jeffrey Alan Schechter quickly established himself as a versatile writer, able to work in all genres from action films to family comedies, from pre-school to adult drama, from live action to animation. His writing has earned him a Gemini Award as well as nominations for two Emmy awards, a Writers Guild of America award, a Writer’s Guild of Canada award, and a BAFTA award. Over the years Jeff has worked with dozens of studios and networks including Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, ABC, NBC, The Discovery Channel, Nickelodeon, The Hallmark Channel, the BBC, VH1 Films, RHI, and The Walt Disney Company. Jeff is the author of a book on story structure titled My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! and is a noted speaker and lecturer on screenwriting. Jeff is the founder/creator of WritersRoom Pro software, a digital writers’ room for secure, remote creativity and collaboration.