Minimum salaries for union screenwriters are set by the Writers Guild of America. Non-union screenwriters may write for free; an established screenwriter may write for millions of dollars.
Against: A word used to describe a script's unproduced price relative to its value if approved for production—for example, if a script is sold for $300,000, but the writer gains an extra $200,000 if it leads to production, the screenwriter's salary is described as "$300,000 against $500,000"
Option: If a script is not purchased, it may be optioned. An option is money paid in exchange for the right (the "option") to produce—and therefore to purchase outright—a screenplay, treatment, or other work within a certain period.
Feature assignment: The writer writes the script on assignment under contract with a studio, production company, or individual
Pitch: The writer works up a five- to twenty-minute presentation of a prospective movie and presents it to buyers in a short meeting
Rewriting: The writer rewrites someone else's script for pay. The writer pitches his "take", much like he would an original pitch
Spec script: Short for "speculative". The writer writes the script (original or someone else's idea) without being paid, and, subsequently, tries to sell it.
Standard Purchase Agreement
A typical screenwriter's purchase agreement will typically contain the following:
Guarantee: Literally, the money the writer is guaranteed to receive, whether the script is produced or not. This amount is usually divided into steps with payments and due dates. For example, a "three step deal" might include:
The guaranteed money is sometimes referred to as the "front-end."
Optional Steps: The deal may often define optional steps that the studio can trigger at their discretion. For example:
Bonus/Bonuses: Also known as the "back-end". Typically, a production bonus is paid once the script goes into production, or, if there is more than one writer, after the final credit is determined. A typical contract will specify a smaller production bonus for shared credit. There may also be bonuses contingent upon budget (e.g., "if the movie's budget is greater than x") or grosses. The cousin of the bonus is the "penalty", which might be paid by the writer if, for example, the script has not been put into production by a set date; penalties are rarely included in writer's deals, however.
1900: One of America's first screenwriters, New York journalist Roy McCardell, is hired to write ten scenarios (each about 90 seconds long) for $15 each (equivalent to $432 in 2016).
1947: The original screenplay Woman of the Year is bought by MGM for $100,000 (about $1.1 million in 2016)
1949: Ben Hecht is paid $10,000 a week (about $101,000 in 2016). Claims David O. Selznick paid him $3,500 a day (about $35,200 in 2016)
1967: William Goldman's original screenplay Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was purchased for $400,000 (about $2.9 million in 2016)
1972: Leonard and Paul Schrader's spec script The Yakuza is sold for $350,000 (about $2.0 million in 2016). Paul Schrader and his agent receive 40% each; novelist Leonard Schrader, who conceived the idea for the story, is persuaded to take just 20% and a story credit
1984: Shane Black sells the screenplay to Lethal Weapon for $250,000
1985: Ex-firefighter Gregory Widen sells his university thesis screenplay Highlander for $500,000
1989: David Chappe sell his modern-day, hurricane-hits-coast, and pirates-take-over-town spec Gale Force to Carolco for $500,000
1990: Jim Gorman and Michael Beckner sell their action/comedy Western "Texas Lead and Gold" to Largo Entertainment for $1 million. Jim Gorman also on as Producer
1990: Kathy McWorter, who was promoted by her agent as a 21-year-old wunderkind, though in fact she was 28 years old, sells her sex comedy The Cheese Stands Alone for $1 million. This was followed by nuclear-terrorist technothriller The Ultimatum by Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool and WWII action comedy Hell Bent... and Back! by Doug Richardson and Rick Jaffa, both of which sold for a million dollars. None of these movies have been produced so far
1990: Brian Helgeland and Manny Coto sell their nuclear-armed robot spec The Ticking Man for $1.2 million. The script was sent out with a ticking alarm clock attached
1990: Shane Black is paid $1.75 million for The Last Boy Scout
1990: Joe Eszterhas sells Basic Instinct to Carolco for $3 million, but is replaced by Total Recall scribe Gary Goldman when he argues with director Paul Verhoeven over explicit content. Verhoeven later came back and made peace with Eszterhas and shot Basic Instinct unchanged from Eszterhas' Original Screenplay. There will not be another million dollar spec script for over two years
1991: Jim Gorman and Michael Beckner sell their action/comedy Pirate Adventure "Cutthroat Island" to Carolco Pictures for $2 million. Jim Gorman also on as Producer
1991: Front page of Variety mourns the end of the modern spec market, announcing "the candy store is closed"
1992: Sherry Lansing is hired to run Paramount and spends $3.6 million in less than a week, $2.5 million for a two-page outline of Jade by Joe Eszterhas, and $1.1 million for the script Milk Money by John Mattson. At the time, both deals are records, respectively, for outlines and romantic comedy specs
1994: After a bidding war, Shane Black is paid $4.5 million by New Line for The Long Kiss Goodnight
1999: M. Night Shyamalan, who received $2.5 million for breakout script The Sixth Sense, is paid $5 million for Unbreakable, plus another $5 million to produce and direct. Later receives same sum for Signs
2003: M. Night Shyamalan is paid $7.5 million for The Woods, later renamed The Village, but with a reduced fee of $3.21 million for producing and directing
2004: Peter Jackson is paid the higher of $20 million aggregate or 20% of the gross to write, produce and direct King Kong. Jackson wrote the screenplay with his partner, Fran Walsh, and Phillipa Boyens
2004: Bobby Florsheim and Josh Stolberg are paid $1.5 million against $2.5 million + 2% for The Passion Of The Ark, later becoming Evan Almighty. Daily Variety reports this as the highest price paid for a spec script by unproduced writers
2005: Terry Rossio and Bill Marsilii are paid $3 million against $5 million for the script of Deja Vu.
Some of the highest amounts paid to writers for spec screenplays:
$5 million:
Deja Vu by Terry Rossio and Bill Marsilii
$4 million:
The Long Kiss Goodnight by Shane Black
$3 million:
Basic Instinct by Joe Eszterhas
Medicine Man by Tom Schulman
The Ugly Americans (Eurotrip) by Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Jeff Schaffer
Bad Dog (unproduced) by Dale Launer
Married in the Morning (unproduced) by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan
Panic Room by David Koepp, at $2 million against $3 million
$2.75 million:
Mozart and the Whale (The Newports) by Ronald Bass. $2 million against $2.75 million
$2.5 million:
Troy by David Benioff
The Sixth Sense by M. Night Shyamalan
Twister by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Crichton
Jade by Joe Eszterhas
A Knight's Tale by Brian Helgeland
Untitled Will Davies Romantic Comedy (unproduced) by Will Davies
Jackson (unproduced) by Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson
The Superconducting Supercollider of Sparkle Creek, Wisconsin (unproduced) by David Koepp and John Kamps, at $2.5 million against $3.25 million with an additional deferred bonus of $1.5 million for Koepp
$2.25 million:
Untitled Disney Family Comedy (unproduced) by Kevin Bisch
They Came From Upstairs (Aliens in the Attic) by Mark Burton
You, Me and Dupree by Mike LeSieur
The Break-Up by Vince Vaughn, Jeremy Garelick, and Jay Lavender
$2 million:
The Arrangement (unproduced) by Kevin Bisch
Stalker: A Love Story About a Psycho Stalker (unproduced) by Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert
The Worst Man (unproduced) by Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert
Manhattan Ghost Story (unproduced) by Ronald Bass, based on the novel by T. M. Wright.
Radio Flyer by David M. Evans
Forever Young by Jeffrey Abrams
Showgirls by Joe Eszterhas
Sacred Cows (unproduced) by Joe Eszterhas
Reliable Sources (unproduced) by Joe Eszterhas
Courage Under Fire by Patrick Sheane Duncan
Tennessee (Pearl Harbor) by Randall Wallace
River Road (unproduced) by Andrew Niccol
The Mark (unproduced) by Rob Liefield
Untitled Tim Herlihy Comedy (The Ridiculous Six) by Tim Herlihy
The Game by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris
Untitled Firestein-Pesce Action Project (unproduced) by Les Firestein and P. J. Pesce
Executive Search (unproduced) by Gerald Di Pego
Going West (Switchback) by Jeb Stuart
Untitled Michael McCullers Buddy Comedy (unproduced) by Michael McCullers
Alpha (unproduced) by David Benioff
Ghost Town by David Koepp and John Kamps
Male Pattern Baldness (unproduced) by Joe Eszterhas, at $2 million against $4.5 million
Arthur & Lancelot (unproduced) by David Dobkin
$1.8 million:
RPM (unproduced) by J. H. Wyman
Stay by David Benioff
$1.5 million:
Evan Almighty by Bobby Florsheim and Josh Stolberg, at $1.5 million against $2.5 million
The Sweetest Thing by Nancy Pimental
$1.3 million:
Monster-In-Law by Anya Kochoff, at $1.3 million against $2.3 million
$1.25 million:
99 Problems (unproduced) by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, at $1.25 against $2 million
$1.1 million:
Milk Money by John Mattson, bought outright by Paramount in 1992
$1 million:
Foreplay (unproduced) by Joe Eszterhas, at $1 million against $3.5 million
The Cheese Stands Alone (unproduced) by Kathy McWorter
"ONLY YOU" (sold as "HIM") to TriStar in 1992 by Diane Drake
Epsilon (unproduced) by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick
The Imitation Game by Graham Moore, at "seven figures" to Warner Brothers
$800,000:
Medieval (unproduced) by Mike Finch and Alex Litvak, at $800,000 against $1.6 million
Stanley's Cup (unproduced) by Jeffrey Alan Schechter, at $800,000 against $1.1 million
$750,000:
Steinbeck's Point of View (unproduced) by Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson, at $750,000 against $3,750,000 with a potential $2 million bonus cast contingent
Man-Woman by Bobby Florsheim and Josh Stolberg, at $750,000 against $1.5 million
Cardinal Bay (unproduced) by Mitchell German
The Karma Coalition by Shawn Christensen, at $750,000 against $1.5 million
