PRODUCTION TIPS: Get the Right to Make Changes... Or Else
So you're a producer with a hot property optioned from a novelist who gave you the right to shoot a film based on her novel. You have all your agreements signed by your above-the-line and below-the-line people and your production is ready to start. During the development of your film, you choose to make major changes to the story that you think will make it more engaging, more artistic and/or more marketable. Then your phone is blowing up with calls from the original author on which your production is based. She's pissed off with the changes but you're not worried because she signed your contract and she can't do anything to stop you. Or so you think. You and your lawyer look at the contract and he notices the following: that while you did obtain the right to represent the work, you DIDN'T obtain the right to make alterations, changes or modifications to the characters, stories or text created by the original author in the first place. As Gordon P....