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

tessgerritsen.com

111–120 of 130 posts

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

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you intentionally ignoring this claim by the author? While my film was in development, I re-wrote the third act of the film script with scenes of satellite debris destroying ISS and the lone surviving female astronaut adrift in her spacesuit.

Probably. Their account was created 9 days ago and has only a few comments under it, none of which are meaningful in any sense. They're either a troll or an account owned by an Astroturf network.

Those are some bold accusations. I don't see how their comment history supports them being anything but a new member.

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=WillPostForFood

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

#112
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would somehow jump across multiple acquisitions, mergers and organizational changes and begin binding a different company "Somehow"? They would do so via a completely standard clause that enjoins any acquiring entity to honour the terms of the contract. I have never negotiated a contract that did not have a such a clause. Neither has anyone else who knows what they are doing. Maybe she had incompetent representatio…

> Maybe she had incompetent representation. She talks of "net profit", not "gross profit", so that's a possibility.

Exactly. There's no such thing as net. Even blockbusters rarely achieve 'net.' It's the mark of a Hollywood rookie to have net points. Gross is the only way to go. Eddie Murphy famously called net points as "monkey points." Obviously she didn't have an agent who understood Hollywood Accounting. Of course, a new writer or someone without much bargaining power generally takes what they can get.

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

#113
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ought to be prima facie evidence of ineffective/incompetent counsel A much more likely explanation is that the writer and her lawyer know perfectly well the difference between gross and net, but this was the best deal they could get, and it was better than nothing. Writer and her lawyer: "We demand 3% of the gross ." Studio head: "I'm not offering any percentage of the gross." Writer and her lawyer: "OK, we'll sett…

I wouldn't mind how studios did this if they were simply up front about it instead of being weasels about it.

They aren't being weasels. Everyone in Hollywood already knows there isn't any net. It's rare to get gross -- generally the only time that happens is when the star power is such that it would make a significant difference in the box office. Bradley Cooper gets net, no name writer from Pfugerville gets net, if any points at all.

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

#114
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh? The story is not the same, but the whole universe and political system are exactly the ones of the book, they just basically removed the mech-armors stuff.

Yeah. That is basically what happened with "I, Robot", but not, AFAIK what happened with Starship Troopers.

[deleted]

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

#115
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh? The story is not the same, but the whole universe and political system are exactly the ones of the book, they just basically removed the mech-armors stuff.

Yeah. That is basically what happened with "I, Robot", but not, AFAIK what happened with Starship Troopers.

Its what happened with ST as well. The Wikipedia page for the movie covers it pretty well, with sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_%28film%29

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

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, some of the issues seem to be: 1. The movie "Gravity" is primarily an action/special-effects pageant about an astronaut trying to get safely back to Earth after an accident destroys the space station she was on. The book "Gravity" is a medical techno-thriller about a doctor in space fighting a disease outbreak on a space station. Reasonable people can probably disagree about whether the movie, given its signifi…

For one, the title is the same...

Well I guess that settles it, then.

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

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, some of the issues seem to be: 1. The movie "Gravity" is primarily an action/special-effects pageant about an astronaut trying to get safely back to Earth after an accident destroys the space station she was on. The book "Gravity" is a medical techno-thriller about a doctor in space fighting a disease outbreak on a space station. Reasonable people can probably disagree about whether the movie, given its signifi…

> The book "Gravity" is a medical techno-thriller about a doctor in space fighting a disease outbreak on a space station. Remember that sometime between 1999 and 2002[1], Gerritsen wrote and submitted a third act re-write including "scenes of satellite debris destroying ISS and the lone surviving female astronaut adrift in her spacesuit." (core suspense of Cuaron's script). [1] http://www.tessgerritsen.com/gravity-20…

Screenwriters re-write portions of scripts all the time, yet are rarely granted writing credit on the script. Every hollywood script has had at least 4-5 writers on it, yet only one of them gets the credit and the royalties. How that's decided, I honestly don't know, but there were stories about the producer's girlfriends getting more writing credits than screenwriters in the 50s and 60s.

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

#118
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, some of the issues seem to be: 1. The movie "Gravity" is primarily an action/special-effects pageant about an astronaut trying to get safely back to Earth after an accident destroys the space station she was on. The book "Gravity" is a medical techno-thriller about a doctor in space fighting a disease outbreak on a space station. Reasonable people can probably disagree about whether the movie, given its signifi…

> The court found that even if all allegations in her complaint were taken to be true, they still would not establish that Warner Brothers was bound by that contract. So it is possible that: 1) X sells rights to Y, having Y commit to obligations in exchange. 2) Z acquires Y. 3) Z now has the rights but not the obligations. WTF?

I'd guess they either don't have the rights, or don't have the obligations. If you're suing for breech of contract, you'd have to show they have the obligations; if you're suing for infridgement, you have to show they don't have the right.

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

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case I guess it would be "You've ripped me off to the tune of a million dollars, so I'm going to cause you a million and one dollars in property damage, this way you'll learn next time". This is considered acceptable in some cultures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild

So, weregild is a legal institution the entire point of which is to prevent the process you're talking about. Why the link?

Because if at some point in history there was a need for weregild, the process I am talking about was common enough to warrant addressing.

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

#120
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, some of the issues seem to be: 1. The movie "Gravity" is primarily an action/special-effects pageant about an astronaut trying to get safely back to Earth after an accident destroys the space station she was on. The book "Gravity" is a medical techno-thriller about a doctor in space fighting a disease outbreak on a space station. Reasonable people can probably disagree about whether the movie, given its signifi…

> The court found that even if all allegations in her complaint were taken to be true, they still would not establish that Warner Brothers was bound by that contract. So it is possible that: 1) X sells rights to Y, having Y commit to obligations in exchange. 2) Z acquires Y. 3) Z now has the rights but not the obligations. WTF?

money baby, money, loooots of money
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