write sci-fi and fantasy for television, but my roots are in the world of print and text. And over the years, whenever I've found myself at a convention or writers' conference, or sometimes just having coffee or drinks with a friend from the world of prose, the question arises: How come there aren't more movies and TV shows based on published SF?
My first answer is that there are lots of adaptations on the way, with I, Robot (based on the stories of Isaac Asimov) looming in June, and the SCI FI Channel doing A Wizard of Earthsea (from the novel by Ursula K. Le Guin). I know of dozens of other projects in development.
But it's undeniable that the majority of the famous SF movies and series, from Star Trek to The X-Files to Farscape, from Star Wars to Close Encounters to The Matrix—are original concepts. Even Blade Runner, famously based on a novel by Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) is so dramatically changed as to be unrecognizable.
We still have no Stranger in a Strange Land, no Childhood's End (to name just two famous and classic novels that have languished in studio vaults for decades). No Blood Music. No Deathworld. No Way Station. Neuromancer!
For decades, the excuse was that technology didn't permit many of these classics to be filmed. That's gone—which is one of the reasons you've had the pleasure of seeing The Lord of the Rings.
But one factor that still hampers the easy translation from page to screen is the question of rights.
Some sci-fi masters are MIA
Here's an example from my own experience. There was a writer we'll call "K.M. Jorgenson" who published a handful of stories and paperback novels in a career that stretched from the 1950s to the 1980s. He never made much money or found an audience sufficient to keep his work in print for long—even via small presses.
When I took an interest in his short stories and decided I wanted to make a deal to option them, I found myself having to play detective. The directory of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has a helpful list of agents for the estates of deceased members—but "Jorgenson" wasn't on it. Strike one.
A good number of SF writers from the 1950s were represented by two or three author's agents, so a handful of phone calls should have turned up a representative. Alas, the largest agency from that time had just been broken up—and the other possibilities also came up dry. Strike two.
Only then did I remember that Jorgenson had lived in northern Colorado. I did an Internet search for this name—which showed that he still had a phone listed in his name, six years after his death.
I called and wound up speaking to his widow. Success!
Well, not quite. The widow informed me that her late husband had been so embittered about certain aspects of his career that he had fired his last agent and essentially given up any management of his works. She had followed suit—had no idea whether materials were in copyright, or renewed, and wanted nothing to do with any negotiations.
I suppose I could have gone ahead with the project, putting aside a fair market fee for the widow "Jorgenson" or the heirs. In any case, other projects intruded.
Options are not an option
This is an extreme example, but when it comes to rights questions—who controls them, who owns them (not the same thing) and for how long?—sci-fi is an especially challenging field.
For every Philip K. Dick, whose estate is ably and aggressively represented, there are a dozen "K.M. Jorgensons." If you wanted to adapt R.A. Lafferty or Murray Leinster or Richard Wilson or George O. Smith—writers who have one or more classic stories to their credit—where would you start searching for rights? There is one excellent management firm, Created By, which represents a goodly number of active and formerly active writers, but nowhere near all of them.
If I were an agency, I would have a Web page that listed my clients' stories—and the current status of every one. ("Film and television rights optioned by Michael Cassutt through August 2004.")
In fact, why limit this to a single agency? The Internet is a perfect place to "store" complete bibliographies of these potentially forgotten writers, along with representation and rights data.
While we're at it, we should also develop a new class of rights agreement—an option to option—what I call a "hold." A small-time producer/writer/director could pay a reasonable fee, a percentage of an option, to "hold" a project for weeks rather than years.
The drawbacks? An immense amount of correspondence for a minuscule return ... for both agent and client. One of the complaints I hear from prose writers is this: People want to make deals, but agents no longer have time for small-scale arrangements. It stands to reason: A typical "hold" offer might be $1,000—giving an agent a $150 commission. Seems sufficient for a phone call, but the paperwork and communication involved in even the most basic transaction consumes far more time than that.
Maybe there should be a standard "hold" document—one page in length, committing both parties to "best effort" positions—that would save an agent's time and give a potential producer some protection.
There's also the danger that you might damage the commercial prospects—the quote—for other properties. Why should Miramax pay full freight for an option when an agency is giving "holds" to other entities?
Well, if the Writers Guild of America can have high-budget and low-budget rates, agencies ought to be able to do the same. Nothing will stop large companies from creating low-budget entities to pick up material on the cheap. That's been going on for decades.
As a potential writer-producer, I'd like to avoid having to do time-consuming and ultimately fruitless detective searches.
As a potential licensee, I'd like to see potential buyers lined up with hold or option payments, no matter how small.
It might keep me from turning into the "K.M. Jorgenson" of the year 2030.
Michael Cassutt has been through the rights and options mill as both buyer and seller. He is the author of a number of novels and short stories as well as scripts for such series as Stargate SG-1 and, most recently, The Dead Zone.
