Release Date

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Gerald

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Sep 8, 2011
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It's the production company that first negotiates with a distributor for broadcast rights not the other way around.

That's surprising. Making a series is expensive, you would expect it the other way around, as there has to be a certainty that the show will actually be broadcast. But I suppose the negotiations are often on the basis of a pilot?

So, if I get it right, the production company initiates the whole thing, buys the rights to the book, makes the pilot and they are the ones that try to sell it to (different) broadcasters everywhere.
That would explain why there are sometimes pilots of series that exist, but are never broadcast or seen anywhere. In that case, they just couldn't sell it and the series remains unmade.
 

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Ms. Mod
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That's surprising. Making a series is expensive, you would expect it the other way around, as there has to be a certainty that the show will actually be broadcast. But I suppose the negotiations are often on the basis of a pilot?

So, if I get it right, the production company initiates the whole thing, buys the rights to the book, makes the pilot and they are the ones that try to sell it to (different) broadcasters everywhere.
That would explain why there are sometimes pilots of series that exist, but are never broadcast or seen anywhere. In that case, they just couldn't sell it and the series remains unmade.
At least the ones that I'm familiar with have the distributor on board even before making the pilot. The process generally goes that either Steve's agent has shopped his manuscript to people he thinks would have an interest (often even before the book has been published) or a filmmaker has approached Steve to ask for film rights. Once the film rights proposal has been accepted for negotiation, the buyer/filmmaker may already have a potential distributor in place or it's then up to them to find one. They then start pre-production, casting, script writing, location, etc. but don't necessarily have to have a pilot already filmed. Again, I'm basing this on what I've seen and it could have a lot to do with having Steve's name attached either because it's based on one of his properties or he's a co-producer, that they don't have to have a pilot in the can to pitch to a distributor.
 

Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
2,201
7,168
The Netherlands
At least the ones that I'm familiar with have the distributor on board even before making the pilot. The process generally goes that either Steve's agent has shopped his manuscript to people he thinks would have an interest (often even before the book has been published) or a filmmaker has approached Steve to ask for film rights. Once the film rights proposal has been accepted for negotiation, the buyer/filmmaker may already have a potential distributor in place or it's then up to them to find one. They then start pre-production, casting, script writing, location, etc. but don't necessarily have to have a pilot already filmed. Again, I'm basing this on what I've seen and it could have a lot to do with having Steve's name attached either because it's based on one of his properties or he's a co-producer, that they don't have to have a pilot in the can to pitch to a distributor.

His name alone pretty much guarantees that it can be sold, I think. But for example Joe Hill's Locke & Key was a pilot that never made it to a full series. It seems it was only once shown at Comic Con San Diego and even though well received, didn't make it. (In 2016 he said he was writing a new pilot and wil try to pitch it.)
 

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Ms. Mod
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His name alone pretty much guarantees that it can be sold, I think. But for example Joe Hill's Locke & Key was a pilot that never made it to a full series. It seems it was only once shown at Comic Con San Diego and even though well received, didn't make it. (In 2016 he said he was writing a new pilot and wil try to pitch it.)
I'm not involved with Joe's side of the business but I'm sure it works differently for him and many others.
 

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Ms. Mod
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It's hard to talk about in general terms as it seems to go differently with different projects. It just makes it somewhat confusing and hard to know where to look out for something to appear.
Yup. That's why I qualified my response that that's how I've seen it go for Steve's projects, not that that's how it works for everybody. :smile2: