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EXCLUSIVE: After brokering over 30 film and TV option deals for articles from The New York Times since signing the daily as a client, ICM has just signed New York Magazine. It will rep the magazine in all areas to broaden its reach in Hollywood. Under the tenure of editor-in-chief Adam Moss, the magazine is a good read and has won 17 National Magazine Awards. Much like The Times does, New York Mag will share in the revenue and would receive credit in any film made from its articles. There is a wide gulf between an option deal and an actual film, but more and more publications have been getting in on the action over the past several years. Some prominent writers are able to retain screen rights, and they still have agents make deals that the publications don’t share.
New York Magazine does have a track record for articles on Gotham-centric subjects being turned into films. The TV series Taxi was based on Mark Jacobson’s article Night-Shifting for the Hip Fleet; the John Travolta-starrer Saturday Night Fever was hatched from Nik Cohn’s article Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night; Goodfellas came from a Nicholas Pileggi article based on the book Wiseguy; American Gangster came from Jacobson’s feature The Return of Superfly; and Grey Gardens was in part inspired by the Gail Sheehy article The Secret of Grey Gardens.
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There’s a part of me — the writer in me — that sees this as off-putting and, well, bullshit. If you’re a good writer, a real writer, or even a creative thinker, you can find a story in ANYTHING. So why not just have agencies comb through every newspaper and magazine for television/film ideas, then hire their own writers to script them? Shouldn’t independent producers be the ones doing this — that is, if a producer is looking for an idea, he combs through the pages of periodicals or other outlets in search of something, then brings it to his agent, or tries to put it together himself after obtaining the article’s rights. There is something disingenuous to me about an agency basically making claim to every article in a magazine or newspaper, which
1. Takes away the power of someone to read the article themselves, get a story idea from it, then try to write something based on it only to find out it’s already owned.
2. Questions the value and reasoning of the stories/articles printed in the first place – are they only there to be optioned? Is that what the New York Magazine folks will look for when deciding what articles now make the cut?
I may be in the minority here, and that’s okay. I understand the reasoning ICM and other agencies do this, and the reasoning magazines and papers accept it — but it feels like just another way to avoid having to hear an original pitch by a writer, having no faith writers out there in fact have original pitches, and instead allows the agency to lay claim that it “found the material itself” via the magazine it already has a deal with, rather than read a spec by Joe Nobody.
You’re in the minority because you don’t understand… So much is wrong with your post that my head hurts. This isn’t bad for anyone. It makes everything more accessible for writers, producers and buyers. Yes, even Joe Nobody writer.
1) Why would you write something on spec without controlling it the first place? Here’s how the business works: if you like an idea based on an existing piece of material, option the material, then write.
2) It just makes it easier to option those stories. No more chasing down rights. Just call the agent.
The writer in you doesn’t have a clue how the business works I guess. This doesn’t hurt writers in any way. It provides access for feature and television writers, producers and buyers.
You are in the minority and you do understand. That is the place of anyone who has a functioning brain and uses it while interfacing in any way, shape, place or form in this industry. They want you to worship the dollar and the dollar alone, and please stop thinking.
But don’t do it.
Another idiot.
Also, got to love how they only consider whether it will benefit themselves as screenwriters, not the fact it is a huge benefit to the journalists who did the real work in finding the subject, researching and forming a narrative out of all the bits of information for relatively not very much pay.
Bet one of the first article’s they sign get optioned is Wesley Yang’s recent piece about being Asian in America. It’s creating tremendous buzz. I mean, the guy’s gone from an unknown to being a superstar in Bklyn.
You are absolutely right. And to take this line of thought one step further, this further alienates the producer from the process because they now must go through icm’s own vetting process in order to get involved in a project and this feels like it crosses the line where agencies cannot act as producers.
If they are repping the material, pitching the ideas to their writers and bringing packages to studios they are in fact acting in the role of producer. Thus just makes it ever harder to make a living on the fringes of the industry.
you make absolutely no sense whatsoever. agencies represent books, IP; it’s the same thing here. WME reps Texas Monthly, same deal. These articles are not just “ideas.” These are extremely detailed feature articles that in turn are optioned for their lengthy reports on an interesting subject that will/can elicit either commercial or critical success. Sure, ICM can cater to their own clients first, but every agency does that with the material they rep, even with specs (trying to package with their directors or producers).
And as far as agencies becoming “producers,” they are legally prohibited from doing so. Can’t get credit, can’t get paid. Of course that’s why so many leave the agency world and become producers or managers.
Joe, agreed.
Jimmy H.
oh, and one more thing, if you’re an indie producer and you’re solely relying on the NY Times Magazine in the hopes of optioning one of its articles then you’re not a very good indie producer. Mike De Luca, Scott Rudin . . . they get those articles. YOU on the other hand should be chasing that article in the Philadelphia Inquirer’s sunday magazine or the Sacramento Bee’s because A) you actually have a chance B) they could be inherently more awesome.
And also, if you DO find that great NY Time Mag article from 25 years ago that you love, at least you now know where to get in touch with the rights holder.
if you’re any kind of producer and you rely on pre-known (or whatever they’re called) “properties,” plush toys, candy dispensers, television shows and all the troughs where lazy people slurp – you’re not a very good producer
I’m an experienced but unimportant independent producer in NYC and I got rights to a NY Times Magazine story a couple years ago. Try first before you give up.
New York magazine, not NYT mag.
What the article doesn’t say is that New York Magazine is helping itself to 50% of the money generated by the deal. Where in the past a writer could get an agent to shop his/her work around and maybe get a deal that would benefit the writer directly, now the magazine is inserting itself into that process. Magazine writers don’t make a lot of money.The rare, occasional option is a welcome bit of extra cash. This is a rights and money grab and it’s a really bad idea for writers.