How a script becomes a film
Three guides to what happens to a screenplay once it is written: the stages it goes through, where the money for a film comes from, and how the pages turn into a schedule and a budget. Sign in as a writer and each guide reads your own script alongside it: its comps, its breakdown, and how far it has gone on Tycoon.
- 1
From spec to release
The stages a script goes through once it is written, who makes the decision at each one, and when the writer gets paid.
Writing · Out to read · Option or purchase · Development · Packaging · Financing and the greenlight · Pre-production and the shoot · Post-production · Sales and release · Pilots
- 2
How a film is paid for
Budget bands, where the money comes from in each one, the order it is paid back in, and what a comp's gross does and does not tell you.
The budget · Budget bands · Studio and streamer money · Independent financing · Who is paid back first · Reading a comp's numbers · How the writer is paid
- 3
What the pages cost
How a line producer turns a draft into a schedule and a budget, and which choices on the page move the number.
Pages become days · Locations and company moves · Nights and exteriors · Speaking roles · What the breakdown does not count · Writing to a budget
The guides describe common practice in the US and international film business. Terms vary by deal, country, and year, and nothing here is legal or financial advice. An entertainment lawyer reads a contract before you sign it.