To be fair Martin did that in A Song of Ice and Fire, but unlike with Stirling there was actually an important point to it.
Hopefully "Taint of the Blood" got some of that out of his system. He even added incest! *thumbs up*
/facepalm
It can be done,but how many movies are out there about alternate history? "What if.." is a very good question and the answer is in the books,comics etc,but this kind of "clash of the world" don't have sufficient glimmer,monster,special effect for mass audience.A small american town is ISOT to 1632.And what? I am a fan of this series and a Grandville Gazette and the ideas are wonderful but [my opinion of course] not very "cinematic".Pity... i really want to see the great cardinal Richelieu....
Eric Flint said:Hi, all
There is now serious interest in Hollywood in developing the 1632 universe into a series for television. It's still too early to know if anything will actually gel, but the people I'm working with on the project have real credentials and experience. Right now, we're in the process of putting together a partnership in which I'd be one of the producers and screenwriters involved, which would give me more input.
We'll then spend the next couple of months developing the project. What we'll be proposing is a two-hour pilot episode followed by a one-year 22-episode series based on 1632 itself. Obviously, if that first year is successful, we'd keep going with the later material.
We'll begin shopping it around to the cable TV outfits, probably sometime in April. If we don't get any takers, we'll try the networks afterward. The networks pay better, of course, but we'd rather get a cable TV deal. The networks are also a lot chancier proposition in terms of getting a series actually produced-and then keeping it alive. From my standpoint as an author, I'm a lot more concerned with maximizing the chances of getting the project actually made than picking up some additional option money.
Even in purely financial terms, that's true. For an author, the really big monetary payoff in getting a movie or a TV series made of one of your works is not, contrary to popular belief, the money you make directly from Hollywood. That money is very nice, of course, and can be quite a lot. But it's also gone within a year or two. What really matters is that sales of your books get boosted enormously-and once an author reaches a much high plateau in terms of sales, he or she tends to stay there for many years. All the same factors that make it so difficult for an author to succeed in the first place now start working in the author's favor, once you reach that sort of sales plateau.
The same is true, of course, for anyone else who writes in that universe-which brings me to the central point of this post.
I have a legal problem, as it turns out. This wasn't something that I ever worried about so long as the 1632 series was only appearing in print, because by the standards of the publishing industry the set-up we have with the 1632 series is perfectly acceptable.
But it's not acceptable to Hollywood, as I've had rather forcefully explained to me over the past couple of weeks by people who have much more knowledge of the TV and movie industry than I do. The movie and TV industry is, by publishing standards, absolutely paranoid on the subject of what they call "the chain of rights." Once I had the situation explained to me, I can't say I blame them. The amount of money involved in making a movie or even a cable TV series is much greater-by orders of magnitude-than anything authors ever deal with unless they're J.K. Rowling. (And, not surprisingly, she's one of the few authors who ever gets sued for plagiarism.)
Here's how someone familiar with the situation explained it to my literary agent:
"Shawna,
"Imagine this scenario.
"They make a movie with a $100 million budget. The movie isn't going to be based on Novel #2, or Short Story #33. It's going to be based on the world of 1632. Even if it is indeed based on Novel #2, the filmmakers will have the right to invent stuff of their own, or add elements from some of the other 1632 stories, or from any other sources.
"And let's say that one of the things they add is a scene in which a girl sniffs a flower and the scent reminds her of her uncle. This is not in Novel #2. No one is aware until the night of the premiere that there is a similar scene in Short Story #48. In that scene it's a piece of pie, not a flower, and it's a second cousin, not an uncle, and it's a 62 year old woman, not a girl, but there's a certain similarity.
"Here's what's going to happen, despite what Eric says about all the "understandings." The author of Short Story #48 is going to stand up in the theater and say, "Those sons of bitches ripped off my flower-sniffing scene," and he's going to get a lawyer.
"Eric could not be more wrong when he says "They'll sue me, not the studio." We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars here. Why would anyone sue him and not Disney or Paramount? That is not how it works. They sue the publisher, they sue the studio. Yes, Eric will have to indemnify the studio, but which do you think the studio would prefer?
"1. A freelance writer indemnifies a studio for hundreds of millions of dollars that he can never pay.
"or
"2. Eric nails down the paperwork now so this problem can never occur.
"Of course they are going to insist on #2. You can not close this deal without this protection."
And that's where things stand. I need to get everyone who has ever authored or co-authored a story or an article in the 1632 series-at any length, from co-authoring a novel to writing a very short Brillo piece-to sign a new agreement with me. That agreement will apply retroactively and, of course, will then become the basis for our standard contracts, either for the Gazette or an anthology.
I still need to get a lawyer who specializes in Hollywood to write the actual agreement, to make sure it does what it needs to do. But whatever the specific language winds up being, what the agreement will do is specify in writing that I own all rights in anything that anyone other than me writes in the 1632 universe-most especially including the right to adapt the work for a play, screenplay, motion picture, video, television, radio, game, etc. It's possible that all I'll need would be all derivative rights, or all adaptation rights. But whatever the lawyer tells me is what I'll have to have in a new agreement, or this whole project will never get off the ground in the first place.
I realize that the first reaction people will have to hearing this will usually be "he's asking me to give something up-for nothing. Why should I?"
That is in fact not true, and it's not true in several different ways.
First of all, you're not actually "giving something up" because you never had it in the first place. No one except me can possibly sell the dramatic rights to any of this material to a movie or TV studio. You'll be giving up "rights" that are useless to you anyway.
And which legally, by the way, you don't have in the first place. All the contracts for every volume in this series, anthologies as well as novels, specifically give the dramatic rights to me alone. The only exception involves co-authors of novels, who share the dramatic rights for those specific novels.
The problem here isn't actually "legal" in the technical sense of the term. It's a problem with what you might call the legal realities. The reason Hollywood is so paranoid on this subject is not, contrary to another popular myth, because the studios are always swiping ideas. Most of the lawsuits filed over this issue are hogwash, and wouldn't stand a chance if the issue actually went to trial. The problem is that such lawsuits are invariably filed AFTER the studio has already spent a small fortune making a movie or a TV series, and if they wait to take it to trial the delay will cost them another small fortune regardless of whether they win or not. That's why they take such pains to make sure that any lawsuit filed-and some will get filed no matter what-are obviously bogus.
Secondly, it's not true you'll be getting nothing in exchange because, as I said earlier, the really big boost to an author's income from getting a movie or TV series is the huge boost given to book sales-and that boost is one that every author in the series will benefit from, not just me.
If you have a story in Gazette IV, you can't do a damn thing with it anyway, in terms of dramatic rights. But if I can get a TV series made, then the sales of Gazette IV will go up along with the sales of every volume in the series-and you do get royalties from those sales.
There's another corollary to this, which will also benefit every author in this series. If a TV series is made of the 1632 universe, that will not only boost sales of the existing books in the series, it will also expand the number of possible books. It will expand the readership of the Gazette-which in turn would allow me to raise the pay rates.
With very few exceptions, most authors in this series begin as fans, not as professional authorS. So far, two of those fans have gone on to become co-authors of novels, Andrew Dennis and Virginia DeMarce, with David Carrico, Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett soon to join them. (That's not speculation. They have contracts with Baen and have been paid advances.) Virginia has also produced a volume of her own writings, 1635: The Tangled Web, and Baen has agreed to produce a similar volume of Iver Cooper's stories. The more sales of the series get boosted, the more room there will be for other authors to do the same.
Finally, it's not true because I am setting up a system whereby every author in the series will get a share of any money that I get from selling the rights to make a dramatic adaptation of the literary work for a movie or a TV series. I'm not legally required to do this, but I feel it's the right thing to do even leaving aside the need I have to get everyone's agreement. I've always treated this project as a collective enterprise and I see no reason to change that, so long as I can get the changes in contract language that I need to allow me to deal with Hollywood.
The amount of money anyone will get-assuming any ever arrives at all, of course, which is still very uncertain-will be based essentially on how much their work is likely to become part of any dramatic performance. But everyone who has ever gotten anything published in the series, even if it's just one short story or article in the Gazette, will get something.
Iver Cooper and Rick Boatright are working this into an Excel set-up that will make figuring out anyone's share of the money an automatically determined process. We're still working out the details but once we get it finalized I'll explain it here in another post.
Eric
I think it could be managed well. I doubt it would be, most movies aren't, but it could be.
And the trailer just needs:
[1] The Thirty Years War exists. No need to name it though.
[2] An American town is suddenly dropped there.
[3] First fight scene.
[4] "This isn't America."
[5] "It will be."
[6] Montage of fifth-of-a-second action shots.
[7] Cut to a hand-made, two-star flag flying against smoke, with gunfire in the background.