Quote:
Originally Posted by joehollywood
If so, how much did you get for it, if you don't mind my asking? I'm curious what the going rate for good treatments is. I've heard the occasional story about people getting like $750K for a great treatment, but don't know if that's legit or not.
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Forget about dreams of selling a script for a million bucks. Yes, it does happen. RARELY. And to established writers.
Every now and then there will be some "breakthough" writer who will get an obscene sum for a script (Troy Duffy got $500,000 for Boondock Saints, some guy in town for a week from NY got $750,000- it was in Variety recently, can't find his name). Anyway- FORGET IT. Not gonna happen. Not for awhile, at the very least. For every Joe Esterhas or Robert Towne there's thousands of people who will never come close to those huge numbers.
But don't worry- you can still make a bundle. Of all the screenwriters I knew the average price for a screenplay was about $50,000. That's a studio feature. On average. One friend sold a script for $10,000 and was thrilled, another friend sold one for $200,000- but it was his seventh script with the studio.
Plus once you sell a script you'll get into the Writer's Guild and get all sort of benefits and things. So, it takes time. But in any industry you need to climb the ladder, writing movies is no different.
Don't let those people who use trampolines to get to the top discourage you- they have nothing to grab onto on the way down.