Making Book on It

The eye-popping rise in star salaries is not the only thing driving up the cost of making movies these days.

This week, Warner Bros. shelled out a whopping $8 million for the latest John Grisham bestseller, “The Runaway Jury.”

The sale may be an aberration, yet it points up the industry’s ferocious appetite for hot literary material, particularly by such brand-name authors as Grisham, Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy.

Given Grisham’s marquee value, agents weren’t surprised by the kind of money his new novel fetched. But they’re sure buzzing over a rumor that Crichton’s agent, Creative Artists Agency’s Robert Bookman, plans to ask $20 million for his client’s next book, “Airframe,” a timely story about an airline disaster. The thinking is that if Jim Carrey and Tom Cruise can demand that kind of money because they can sell tickets, why not authors such as Crichton?

Bookman said he’s neither read nor priced the new Crichton book yet, which won’t be delivered to the publisher until next month, but he said, “Michael Crichton should be viewed as a bankable star because he opens movies.” The biggest grossing movie of all time, “Jurassic Park,” was based on Crichton’s book.

Studio executives acknowledge they’re dishing out big bucks for movie ideas--be it a script, completed book or book proposal, magazine articles or pitched ideas. But, in most cases, the big money is primarily being spent either on properties from proven authors and screenwriters or on a high-concept idea such as “Independence Day,” which is visualized as an instant movie with mass appeal.

Although executives say the market is particularly hot for books, Hollywood’s collective fever for the once irresistible spec script seems to have cooled considerably.

In the early 1990s, some writers became very rich by selling their screenplays at auction to the highest bidder, rather than solely working on assignment for movie companies. In the heyday of the spec script buying frenzy, literary agents could attract big bucks for practically anything that even resembled a good movie idea, though many of them weren’t.

On a daily basis, the industry trade papers would report on one million-dollar sale after the other, not to mention the multitudes that went for considerably less.

“I feel the spec market has really cooled this year,” said Touchstone Pictures President Donald DeLine. “We haven’t pursued any high-end spec scripts for a while.”

In fact, one of the last big spec scripts the studio purchased, “Ring of Fire,” for which it paid $800,000, has been shelved indefinitely because of two competing volcano projects at other studios.

Hal Lieberman, production president at Universal Pictures, which has been spending liberally on projects to ramp up under its new management, said companies still spend “if the material is there and the idea is great . . . but you have to think twice today about the marginal buy.”

Studio executives also say that although they may be spending handsomely, it’s not always as much as reported.

Universal executives were irate this week over what they said was a misleading trade story that the studio had paid $1.25 million for a two-page book proposal. In fact, they say, it was a $200,000 option deal, which if a number of factors gel, including best-seller bonuses and the movie getting made, could potentially net out at more than $1 million. Another report that same day said that Universal paid “a high six-figure option” for a book, which sources say actually cost the studio $100,000.

Executives say agents, looking to hype their clients, will often exaggerate the figures.

Agents all over town concur that the spec market has softened. Even the William Morris Agency’s Alan Gasmer, known in the industry as “king” of the spec script auctioneers, reluctantly said, “We like to say the spec market is sluggish.”

Jeremy Zimmer, of United Talent Agency, said, “You’re not seeing as many specs being sold every week, it’s just not the case anymore.” Not unlike other areas of the business such as the box-office performance of some movies and the plight of the mid-level actor, Zimmer said, “the middle ground is dropping” for spec scripts.

“A lot of people are willing to take a flyer on something for very little money, or they’re spending a lot of money for something they feel has a brand name identity like Grisham, Crichton or [screenwriters] Ted Tally and Jeb Stewart,” Zimmer said. “But the $350,000 against $700,000, mid-six-figure sale is not really common anymore.”

A number of agents believe the slowdown in the script market is attributable to the huge backlog companies have amassed over the last couple of years.

“It’s because everybody bought up so many spec scripts in the last year to 18 months,” Gasmer said.

Entertainment attorney David Colden, who’s been involved in a number of high-profile sales, proposes that the reason “the market has been very quiet, in historical terms, is that a number of buyers who would create bidding wars have fallen away.” For instance, Warner Bros.’ new co-production heads, Bill Gerber and Lorenzo di Bonaventura, are said to be concentrating more on packaging their existing projects than buying new scripts. Disney is making fewer movies and has shuttered one of its three production arms. Sony has cut back on its purchases and MGM slowed to a virtual standstill as the company itself went on the auction block.

Colden said that even at the high-end of the spec buying scale, “we’re not seeing the level of activity we saw two years ago.” He, and others, suggests that it has been supplanted by an increase in the sale of books and book proposals.

In its efforts to gear up its production operation, Fox 2000, the newest movie unit at Twentieth Century Fox, has been particularly aggressive. Disney and Universal also have been on book-buying sprees lately.

In 1994, on the basis of a 100-page manuscript and an outline, Disney uncharacteristically shelled out $3 million for movie rights to the unfinished book, “The Horse Whisperer,” and has bought other less expensive literary properties since.

“Books seem to be much more the thing,” Disney’s DeLine said. “They attract filmmakers and actors because they have well-developed characters and a lot more substance.”

In recent weeks, Universal has spent big on “Primary Colors” and two unpublished manuscripts, “White Blood” and Scott Turow’s “Laws of Our Fathers.”

Literary agent Robert Gottlieb, of the William Morris Agency, agrees that “books still remain the best source material for films and television because they’re written and designed to entertain a wide readership.”

He said a lot can get lost in the development of a script because there are often “too many hands in the pot” between various studio executives and screenwriters all lending their input to a given project. “With books, the creative process is between the author and the editor.”

Gottlieb, who represents such commercially hot authors as Clancy and Dean Koontz, said a new development in the book rights area is increased spending by TV outlets. “We’re getting deals in TV for miniseries which are up near seven figures,” he said.

Gersh Agency’s Ron Bernstein said he’s also experienced an upsurge in book sales to TV. “The real growth area is television,” said the agent. “TV is paying for material what they pay for talent.” He said he recently sold a two-hour movie to CBS “that I was staggered by.”

He also suggests firms are buying books at earlier stages of completion because of the intense competition for good material. “It used to be that buyers used to wait until a book was finished and edited. In the last two years, anything goes. I’m going to retire when I can sell an acknowledgment line for a million dollars,” he joked.

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The Cost of Movie Ideas Hollywood is willing to dish out big bucks not just for movie stars but also for movie ideas. For a hot book or screenplay, studios have been willing to pay millions of dollars. Recently, the market has favored books by marquee authors or books that instantly attract the interest of major stars and filmmakers. Meanwhile, the market has cooled for screenplays written on spec. Here are some recent milestones:

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“The Runaway Jury”

This week, Warner Bros. agreed to pay author John Grisham an astounding $8 million for the movie rights to his latest novel. Grisham is among an elite group of best-selling authors who can command huge fees because their books have already become hit movies.

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“Primary Colors”

Director Mike Nichols paid $1.5 million for the political novel by Anonymous (now disclosed as Newsweek columnist Joe Klein). Nichols in turn sold the rights to Universal, which had bid against him for the rights, for what could be more than double what he paid, depending on who is cast in the movie.

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“The Horse Whisperer”

Disney paid a whopping $3 million in 1994 to first-time British novelist Nicholas Evans based solely on an outline and an unfinished manuscript. Increasingly, studios bid for books before they are even written, in this case because Robert Redford was interested as director, actor and producer.

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“The Long Kiss Goodnight”

Shane Black broke all records in 1994 by selling this spec script for $4 million to New Line Cinema, which will release the film in the fall. That seemed to mark the peak of the big-dollar script auctions that had their frenzied heyday in the early 1990s with such properties as Joe Eszterhas’ “Basic Instinct” and Black’s “The Last Boy Scout.”

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“Independence Day”

Last year, Twentieth Century Fox outbid other studios for a script about the world ending on the Fourth of July, guaranteeing writer/director/producer team Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin $7.5 million against a percent of the box-office gross. In this case, the studio instantly saw the prospects for a movie that was marketable worldwide, and their instincts were proven right with 1996’s top-grossing movie.

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“The Last Don”

Mario Puzo sold his latest novel to CBS for a six-hour miniseries to air next year. If the series is made, the deal will be worth more than $2 million to Puzo. The deal illustrates what literary agents say is the next lucrative frontier for best-selling authors: television.

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Reality Check Although the big names are making big bucks, only about 40 members of the Writers Guild of America, West, consistantly make more than $1 million a year. That’s about 1% of working members. And a little over half the WGAW members are unemployed (employed is a member who earns $1 or more during the calender year). The good news for writers is that total earnings and median earnings have climbed substantally.

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Income distribution

Percent of 4,000 employed WGAW members that make:

Over $176,560: 25%

$72,500- $176,000: 25%

$23,000- $72,000: 25%

less than $23,000: 25%

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Total earnings

In millions:’95: $558.4

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Median earnings

For employed members, in thousands:

‘95: $72.5

Source: Writers Guild of America, West; Researched by BRENT WYETH / Los Angeles Times