In the Trades Today

DVDs Bring in Billions of Dollars… and What do Writers Get? Bupkis.

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Variety reported Friday that sales of DVD boxed sets  accounted for $2.8 billion in sales in 2004, up from $160 million in 2000, making TV shows "the fastest growing sector of the US vid biz."

The TV DVD sector account for 18% of  the US disc retail market last year…American shows dominate the DVD market not just in the US but in most Western European countries…

"In economic terms, this trend has been the equivalent for the Hollywood studi0s of striking oil in one’s own backyard, as they discovered lucrative new vehicles for exploiting brands they already own," according to the Screen Digest report.

What is the writer’s take of that gigantic windfall? About zero. Screenwriter John August crunches the numbers, using the DVD of his movie BIG FISH as an example.

the formulas used for home video residuals are based on videotapes, which are
relatively expensive to produce, and sell for a fairly low price. Technology
changes. DVDs are cheaper to produce, and sell for a higher price. But the
formula for paying residuals is still locked into the old paradigm. Studios make
a hell of lot more on each DVD they sell, but the writer (and actor, and
director) still get the same amount.

residualsA recent campaign
by the WGA East does a graphical breakdown of the numbers, but let’s take
Big Fish as an example. According to Video Business, its
MSRP is $28.95, but most people will pay less than that. Let’s say $20, which is
what you’d pay on Amazon. And Amazon is still pulling a 25% markup at that
price; it buys the DVD wholesale at $16.

How much does it cost to manufacture, package, distribute and market each
DVD? On average, $5.45. So the studio is making a profit of $10.55 on each DVD
sold. For Big Fish, that means Columbia/TriStar has made $21.1 million
profit in just one week. Of that, the writer gets the “point-one.”

The studios refuse to give writers, actors, or directors a bigger piece of DVD revenue, not even as little as 1%,  arguing they need  it all to 0ff-set losses in other areas. The income from TV shows on DVD, as well as movies on DVD, more than make up for any losses incurred by short-lived shows in primetime or films that tank at the box-office (In fact, the take from movies on DVD are often much, much larger than the box-office revenues)

For TV writers, DVDs are the future of reruns,  not syndication or foreign sales.
Experts quoted in the article predicted that US sales of TV shows on
DVD will reach $4.4 billion  by 2009.  Currently,  TV shows on DVD account for 30% of all DVD purchases in Western Europe, adding up to $2.1 billion in sales.

We caved on the DVD issue in this negotiation because the studios said there was no way they’d increase our take. They declared it a non-negotiable point. So we, and all the other guilds, settled for small bumps in other areas (and we wrangled a $37 million infusion of cash into our health fund, still a pittance compared to the revenue we won’t see from DVDs).

I think it’s imperative, for the future f the WGA and the financial security of writers, that we make getting a bigger share of DVD revenue a line-in-the-sand in the next contract negotiation…that we align ourselves with our sisters unions on this issue and  make it clear to the studios that we won’t accept no for an answer.

Buffy The Con Slayer

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Variety reports that the organizer of Slayercon ’05, celebrating BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER down under, has disappeared with the $500,000 raised by ticket sales.

Edward Schumacher, topper of Scooby Gang Promotions — who organized
Slayercon 2005 in Adelaide for July 2-3 — is under investigation by South
Australia’s Office of Consumer and Business Affairs after dropping off the radar
in late April with all the event coin.

"We are trying to contact him to see if he has a bona fide intention to hold
the convention in October or to see if we can get the money back," said Mark
Bodycoat, OCBA topper. "But it doesn’t look hopeful, in my experience if things
start to happen like this it is not going to happen at all."

Unconfirmed reports speculate that he’s donated the money to the  Colonial Fan Force and their righteous cause.

The Persuaders

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PersuaderslogoVariety reports that Ben Stiller and British comic Steve Coogan are teaming up for a Dreamworks feature film version of  the 1971 UK-produced TV series THE PERSUADERS, the one-season bomb that starred Roger Moore and Tony Curtis as ner-do-well playboys drafted by a retired judge to work as detectives in Europe. The series began as a spin-off episode of  Moore’s  THE SAINT,  with Stuart Damon in the role that eventually went to Tony Curtis. Despite the immediate  failure of THE PERSUADERS  here, the John Barry instrumental theme is still a beloved hit in France to this day (where it is known as AMICALEMENT VOTRE) and the show remains unaccountably popular overseas.  (Trivia tidbit: Roger Moore also designed the wardrobe on the show. He went from THE PERSUADERS straight into James Bond)

The Fox Schedule

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The fine folks at TVTracker are circulating the Fox schedules for both fall and midseason, too, when 24 and AMERICAN IDOL return to the air.  The new drama series include BONES (about a forensic anthropologist), THE GATE (about deviant criminals and the cops
who pursue them),  HEAD CASES (Chris O’Donnell as a mentally-disturbed lawyer) and PRISON BREAK ( a guy breaks into the prison he designed to help his falsely accused brother escape).

The complete schedules are on the jump.

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The CBS Schedule

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CBS has announced their fall schedule. The highlights: The network is jumping on the LOST and MEDIUM-inspired speculative fiction bandwagon with two shows — THE GHOST WHISPERER (Jennifer Love Hewitt talks to dead people and solves crimes) and THRESHOLD (aliens invade from STAR TREK producer Brannon Braga and BLADE screenwriter David Goyer).  Cancelled:  JOAN OF ARCADIA, JUDGING AMY and Jason Alexander 43rd awful sitcom since  SEINFELD.

The schedule, as printed by USA Today, is on the jump.

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The WB Schedule

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The WB announced their schedule today. The highlights: Don Johnson returns to primetime as a lawyer in JUST LEGAL and director David Nutter continues his amazing winning streak — his pilot SUPERNATURAL made it on the sked. Out of 11 pilots he’s shot, 11 have sold. Midseason shows include BEDFORD DIARIES, a series about sex educators at a NY college, comes from HOMICIDE & ST. ELSEWHERE writer/producer Tom Fontana.

You can find the complete schedule, as reported by TVTracker, on the jump.

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Website as Pitching Tool

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A number of people have alerted me to this news: a guy created a website to pitch his movie… and it worked. LAObserved has the story.

Screenwriter Eric Heisserer set up a
website called The Dionaea House
last year and posted a series of correspondence between characters in his horror
screenplay. After all, if the Internet is there, why not exploit it to create
some buzz? The site got a ton of hits. Tomorrow’s Hollywood
Reporter says the website helped "build the mythology" of the project — and
Warner Bros. Pictures picked it up for David Heyman to produce at Heyday Films.

Pilot Tape Crackdown

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The networks announce their fall schedules in a week or two and, usually, around this time tapes of the various pilots under consideration start floating around town. But this season, that has changed. Variety reports that studios are cracking down on the practice. The studios are getting so tight with tapes, even the producers of the pilots have a hard time getting screeners of their own shows.

"It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen," said one insider at a major
tenpercentery. "You hear rumors of execs telling assistants they could go to
jail if they leak something out."

Another said he can’t even get his hands on his own network’s tapes, at least
prior to the pilot’s official screening.  Studios and nets always make noises about not wanting tapes to be traded with
other studios or nets. So why are the rules actually being enforced this year?

Some trace it back to a dictate from top brass at 20th Century Fox TV, who
laid down the law last month when early copies of a couple of the studio’s
pilots started floating around town — even before the networks where the shows
are set up had had a chance to formally screen them.  Others speculate that Leslie Moonves’ control of Paramount Television has
further restricted the free flow of tapes. Moonves insists on a strict cone of
silence surrounding the development process at his units.

As frustrating as the crackdown has been for some, one studio exec said it’s
necessary in a world where "there’s a tremendous incentive for agents to try to
create a bad buzz" about projects with which they’re not associated.

"When you have people who’ve seen tapes calling network execs and saying, ‘Do
you really like that?,’ it starts to have an impact on your project," the
exec said.

One agent admitted he’s guilty of spreading bad buzz. "Everyone talks shit
about everyone’s pilot," he said.

I wonder if the crackdown will be as strongly enforced after the schedules are announced. Usually, tapes of  busted pilots start floating around town during the summer and you get a chance to see what didn’t  make the schedule and why. 

Last season, I was eager to get my hands on the Lost in Space pilot directed by John Woo and had a hell of a time tracking down a tape through my usual sources (When you’ve written a book on unsold pilots, and filmed two TV specials about’em, you have lots of sources). But once I did get the tape and put it in the VCR I could see why WB wanted to bury it.  It was horrendous, misguided, and stupid.  (I’m still trying to get a copy of The Time Tunnel revival pilot).

Many years ago, I really wanted to see the Stephen J. Cannell-produced  Hawaii Five-O  pilot starring Gary Busey and Russell Wong. But it was done for CBS, and Moonves is notorious about keeping his busted pilot under lock-and-key.  It took me a year or so, but I finally scored a tape from someone who made me promise not to tell anyone where I got it for fear that Moonves would crush him. It wasn’t so bad…but it wasn’t so good, either.