Commercial Potential

Considering the commercial potential of your story idea is crucial to your growth as a writer and to your success as a working writer. As they say, they don’t call this show friends. The movies are business just like widgets. Well, not quite like widgets but Hollywood markets products and those products are meant to but behinds in seats and keep them there. We writers tend to get pretty enamored of our ideas but maintaining a level of objectivity when it comes to the market prospects of the story is what will set you apart from writers who work in their mom’s basement, wearing wife-beaters and drinking Jolt. There are a lot of writers out there who have seen APOCALYPSE NOW one too many times and fancy themselves screenwriters. Trust me on this one.

Before you even begin to write your script, think: is this story something that will draw an A-list star? Will it open big on a Friday night? Or is it more of a character-driven, rainy Sunday afternoon movie? That second category is perfectly respectable, by the way. There is a market for smaller movies. Not every writer has any interest in writing a huge-tentpole-franchise with blaring music. Not that you’re going to sell *that* right now either.

Okay so you’ve ascertained that your idea might actually attract some good talent. And sure, it’s a Sunday afternoon matinee. Make a list of five other movies you can think of that are remotely like it. Really wrack your brain. Now, do some research. Use IMDB. When did the movies you listed come out? And how did they do at the box office? Trends tend to be cyclical. In other words if you have a hard-bitten, philosophical cowboy movie like UNFORGIVEN, comparisons might not be drawn immediately since that movie was released about fifteen years ago, in 1992. There is much more to consider for you though, cowboy writer: have you seen any cowboy movies released lately? Heard of any in production? What ever happened to Deadwood by the way? Mmmmm, maybe the cowboy movie is not the best sell at the moment. Oh, I know, how about a movie about this female boxer who nobody believes in? Ah…maybe not. How is your idea different? How is it uniquely entertaining?

A common mistake that newer writers make is that the trip they made to Switzerland? To see their Grandma? Is going to entertain anyone outside the family. Remember, you are asking an executive to spend potentially twenty five million dollars and up to commit your story to celluloid forever. Movie-making is a very risky business. Most movies lose money; the blockbusters tend to plug up the holes in the dike from all the miscalculations earlier in the year. While the old saying that if we knew what made hit movies – every movie would be a hit is true (who could have predicted the success of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE?) you can count on the fact that nobody cares about your grandma in Switzerland. Unless you can find a way to make that so compelling and entertaining that it is unlike anything we have seen before.

Another way to determine commercial potential is to follow the trades. Go to www.hollywoodwiretap.com for a thumbnail on trade news. In a recent January edition of the New Yorker, David Denby wrote a great article about the state of the movies. Understand what’s going on in the business you are trying to get into. It will serve you well.

But back to you, the writer, at your desk. You’ve got this great idea. Test it for commercial potential before committing yourself to 115 pages of oh-well-that was-a-good-way-to-spend-six-months. And if you do find yourself having written a script that nobody is interested in: sock puppets in the basement *could* make you a Youtube star anyway. Maybe throw in some treadmills.

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