My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood • Hacker News Board

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#71

Post by Gravityloss » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 4:23 AM UTC

arobertson wrote: post #16

chrisbennet wrote: post #9

Even if they honor the contract she will get nothing besides being credited. Her contract states that she gets a percentage of the profits - and the movie will probably never make a profit. Return of the Jedi never made a profit "despite having earned $475 million at the box-office against a budget of $32.5 million" (Wikipedia "Hollywood Accounting") Very sad.

If it is well known that the studios use various accounting methods to hide profits, why do the people in the industry still accept contracts based on profits?

A better question is, why do US federal laws allow that kind of number mangling and contract swindling?

Since any contract can be full of tricks, it just means you need an army of lawyers even for the simplest things. It then gets really hard to actually do anything. And if you're poor, you're bound to get exploited by some obscure loophole.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#72

Post by sgustard » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 4:45 AM UTC

lisa_henderson wrote: post #5

Everyone should stop for a minute and imagine what would happen if this legal precedent spread to the tech startup world. We might then have situations where a highly experienced programmer might sign up with a startup, and sign a contract with that startup, but then have the contract declared null and void if the startup is acquired. I can imagine a "less likely" and "more likely" way this might play out: 1.) "less…

Happens all the time, let's say as in this example:

1. initial stock agreement promises acceleration of vesting upon acquision.

2. later on, an acquirer comes along. They want the employees to stay. So, their merger agreement nullifies the stock provision and issues new stock with reset vesting. Don't like it? Don't accept the acquisition, but you can't pretend that your initial contract is going to help you any.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#73

Post by bsder » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 4:48 AM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #49

bsder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there is a reason why everybody who negotiates a contract with Hollywood or the music industry asks for percentage of gross , not net.

One wonders why not everyone just negotiates gross then? Is it because people are that inexperienced, that some rookies will still fall for net profit thing? Heck, I'm not in film, and even I know not to ask for net. :P

> One wonders why not everyone just negotiates gross then?

Sometimes inexperience. Sometimes you just don't have the leverage.

In this instance, she probably got paid some fixed amount up front and wanted her name in the credits.

From reading the article, it really sounds like the only thing that's contentious is the fact that they didn't give her credit. She probably assumed that the whole percentage of net was actually as useless as expected.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#74

Post by bsder » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 4:53 AM UTC

sgustard wrote: post #72

lisa_henderson wrote: post #5

Everyone should stop for a minute and imagine what would happen if this legal precedent spread to the tech startup world. We might then have situations where a highly experienced programmer might sign up with a startup, and sign a contract with that startup, but then have the contract declared null and void if the startup is acquired. I can imagine a "less likely" and "more likely" way this might play out: 1.) "less…

Happens all the time, let's say as in this example: 1. initial stock agreement promises acceleration of vesting upon acquision. 2. later on, an acquirer comes along. They want the employees to stay. So, their merger agreement nullifies the stock provision and issues new stock with reset vesting. Don't like it? Don't accept the acquisition, but you can't pretend that your initial contract is going to help you any.

> Don't like it? Don't accept the acquisition, but you can't pretend that your initial contract is going to help you any.

Not true, actually. The acceleration occurs before the acquisition. You are now a minority shareholder with a dissident vote--most states have corporation law provisions for making sure that minority, dissident shareholders are statutorily required to be paid fair market value for their shares. The acquiring company is required to buy you out, and the acquisition price establishes a de facto fair market value.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#75

Post by Zangela » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 5:31 AM UTC

To me, that's extractly a move to aviod paying what Tess should have from Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers just took an unspeakable way to gain money, but this could ruin its reputation. Tess should fight for her own right, and stand up for others with similar situations who don't have the backbone to fight.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#76

Post by konceptz » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 5:33 AM UTC

spiritplumber wrote: post #19

dxhdr wrote: post #3

What's wrong with these people? Why couldn't Warner Brothers reach out to Tess and say "Hey, we're going to produce a sci-fi film based on GRAVITY. We'd like to work with you and are interested in re-negotiating your contract for a new version of the story." You know, acting in good faith. Instead they just screw her, no recognition, no money? How is that the default thought process for a company? This may be vindict…

I think it's because large corporations without a public figure at the helm think like paperclip maximizers. There is a process that counts cost vs. reward for various strategies, and the most efficient one is selected. TW is big enough that they don't have to worry about their reputation taking a big hit from doing this once, or even a dozen times - people will still pitch scripts to them. What puzzles me is why we…

I'm confused,and intrigued, what a "military reprisal" would be.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#77

Post by ctdonath » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 5:37 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #40

ricardobeat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the part about the person who wrote the script for the movie being involved in the original project, based on the book?

Did you miss the part where this was a contract issue? Where the author of the book said, literally, "Yeah, Gravity is a great film, but it's not based on my book"? She's trying to argue that a contract she made with one company would somehow jump across multiple acquisitions, mergers and organizational changes and begin binding a different company that made a movie she admits wasn't based on her book. And that's why…

"I, Robot" was a great movie, but not based on the book.

"Starship Troopers" was, as I like to repeat a quip, "based on the back cover of a novel by Robert Heinlein".

"Frozen", while not involving a contract to the long-deceased author, is allegedly based on "The Snow Queen" though I fail to see the connection.

There are numerous other examples of a movie being almost entirely unlike the book for which rights were purchased at significant cost. Producers seem to often go to great lengths to ensure an even tangentially involved author is at least satisfactorily paid. Sure, there are famous examples where the reverse is true ("Forrest Gump", IIRC), but it seems in everyone's interests to err on the side of generosity where due, lest a case like this one codify outright screwing of the sources of ideas - and their eventual defense in substantially less profitable ways.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#78

Post by WillNotDownvote » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 5:38 AM UTC

voyou wrote: post #42

madsravn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's turn it around. If they (WB) feel like they didn't buy it all, they shouldn't have the intellectual property to make a movie based on the book. Seeing it this way, they never bought anything.

The author clarifies in another post on her blog[1] that she isn't claiming that the film is sufficiently similar to the book that it would infringe on her intellectual property. Rather, she is arguing that she has a contract which guarantees her certain compensation if the studio make a film "based on" her book, and that "based on" doesn't require that the film be so similar to the book that it would infringe her co…

Writing and story credits are determined by the producers (based on union guidelines), and arbitrated by the Writers Guild if there's a dispute. That arbitration process is a nightmare from all accounts, but it's what everyone agrees to use.

What I don't know is if "based on" is outside those terms. From looking of the WGA website, it looks like it might well be.

Where I think she'd be out of luck for sure is that the changes she made to the script (which are the places of greatest similarity to her book) would have been work for hire for the studio, and they'd own those changes outright. Which makes sense if, for example, the studio requested those changes from their side. Even if they didn't explicitly give her notes to make those changes, she did so while she was hired by them, and was compensated for making them.

I'd be interested in hearing from a highly experienced screenwriter or screenwriter's agent. There are indeed a lot of subtleties at work that aren't readily apparent. I think there's a good chance the studio is in the right here.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#79

Post by WillNotDownvote » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 5:51 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #47

ricardobeat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the part about the person who wrote the script for the movie being involved in the original project, based on the book?

The notion of an "original" product causally linked to the WB-produced film _Gravity_ assumes facts not in evidence. Gerritsen alleges that the film she worked with Katja on formed a basis for WB's film by dint of Cuaron's involvement in both projects. In the earlier project, Cuaron is alleged to have been "attached" to the project. In the WB production, Cuaron and his son wrote the entire screenplay. The film term o…

Cuaron wasn't super-famous in 2000. He basically had one mid-budget feature under his belt. Add in the fact that writers usually get left out of the loop on that part of the dealmaking and it's not hard to imagine he was more attached than not.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#80

Post by WillPostForFood » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 6:04 AM UTC

zobzu wrote: post #64

tptacek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion of an "original" product causally linked to the WB-produced film _Gravity_ assumes facts not in evidence. Gerritsen alleges that the film she worked with Katja on formed a basis for WB's film by dint of Cuaron's involvement in both projects. In the earlier project, Cuaron is alleged to have been "attached" to the project. In the WB production, Cuaron and his son wrote the entire screenplay. The film term o…

Which is what the lawsuit is based upon really - that's said, the title is the same, the story is very similar, and it seems extremely likely that the author is accurate, even thus it may be difficult to prove (and easy to disprove, WB can just delete all the files where she's mentioned during the acquisition and then she just has her own word for it, emails being easy to fake and all)

The stories are not similar at all. The similarity is the title, that both are sci-fi, and that there is a female lead. Judge for yourself:

Book: Dr. Emma Watson has been training for the adventure of a lifetime: to study living beings in space. But her mission aboard the International Space Station turns into a nightmare beyond imagining when a culture of single-celled organisms begins to regenerate out of control -- and infects the space station crew with agonizing and deadly results. Emma struggles to contain the outbreak while back on Earth her estranged husband, Jack McCallum, works frantically with NASA to bring her home. But there will be no rescue. The contagion now threatens Earth's population, and the astronauts are stranded in orbit, quarantined aboard the station -- where they are dying one by one...

Movie: Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone - tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness.