How Much Do Screenwriters Really Make?

But, the unfortunate twist for screenwriters is that scripts selling for millions is unheard of in this century. Especially if it's an original screenplay idea.

Selling a script, and how to sell a script, are different animals these days than they were 30, 20, even 10 years ago.

Really, there's no fixed, clear answer to screenwriter salary. Most screenwriters don't take home a bi-weekly paycheck for the same amount of money every pay period. Instead, they work on the freelance, ad-hoc model found in many creative industries.

So how much screenwriters make isn't what it seems, or nearly what it used to be. But people figure out how to sell scripts all the time. How do you do it? And when you do, how much dough can you expect?

We'll get there.

HOW TO SELL A SCRIPT

2. The wild spec market of the 1990s

Learning how to sell your screenplay is complicated. Before we get into more methods on how to sell a script, we have to take a look at how the market got to where it is. That’ll help us understand the best practices and techniques you need for selling a screenplay.   

After the 1988 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, there was a flood of spec scripts (scripts written on speculation) because professional script writers had 155 days off of work.

There was also such a demand for content, screenwriting agents (and writers) found themselves in rare positions of power. Selling a screenplay had never been easier. That's why screenwriter salaries ballooned. From week to week, the answer to "How much do screenwriters make" kept increasing.

So, a new policy took effect when selling a screenplay. Studios had from Monday to Friday to make a decision. Every Monday, spec scripts hit the market and by Friday they were either bought, or left in the dust.

This tightened deadline created its own form of drama, as bidding wars began for great scripts. That back-and-forth between the studios drove up prices and inflated screenwriter salaries. And that provides a bit of exposition for how we got to selling a screenplay in the modern day.

We'll look at what happened. First, you'll want to make sure to study exposition in film to increase your chances of selling a script of your own. This video gets into the nitty gritty of exposition.

Eventually, studios drifted towards more surefire, less risky properties like comic book movies, sequels, and remakes. They played it safe, and made profits on the backend at places like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video (R.I.P. to both).

By the time Y2K hit, the spec business was dragging. It would nosedive sharply with the rise of technology in the 21st century.

HOW TO SELL A MOVIE SCRIPT

3. The WGA Strike of 2007

In 2007, the WGA went on strike once more, this time to demand increased residuals for their work. The writers wanted, and deserved, their piece of the pie.

While the writers more or less won, the strike turned into a breath of fresh air for executives. The power writers once wielded was long gone. Selling a screenplay, and finding a seven-figure answer to the question "How much do screenwriters make," became rarer. 

That means that the original treatment will get you $32,922. But, whether or not you write the script or another draft after that is completely up to the studio. They don't have to hire you again.

Even if it’s your life story and your baby that you worked on for years, once you sell a screenplay it’s not yours anymore. It’s the studio’s intellectual property (IP) and they can do with it what they will. If they want to burn it, they can burn it. If they feel that after the first thirty grand it's not worth continuing, they'll shelve it forever.

But let's say you have a good relationship with this studio and they like your treatment. So they hire you to write it into a script. That gets you $28,612. At this point, you've netted $68,534. That's not bad.

Your next draft? They only have a few changes. You make them quickly and they get you that final $11,127. But as your checks come in the mail you start to see some deductions you didn't know about.

Your screenwriting agent takes 10%. There goes $7,200. Your manager takes 10%. There goes another $7,200. Your lawyer wants 5%. There goes $3,600. So you have 75% of your fee left.

But now you have to pay Uncle Sam. There goes at least another ten percent, plus whatever your accountant charges.

All in all, you might walk away with anywhere from sixty to forty percent of your check, depending on how many people you have to pay.

Which, best case scenario for this deal, is $43,597.20.

Joe Eszterhas is, once again, laughing all the way to the bank. Selling a movie script is not a great mathematical way to get rich quick.

Is it possible to make a higher screenwriter salary? Yes, absolutely. But it's hard. That example was done for a low-budget feature film. That's if it costs, in total, less than $5 million.

But if you check the box office numbers for most films these days, they're well over that. That being said, the more expensive a script is projected to cost, the harder it will be to sell.

Add that to the number of writers already working, the number of writers who want to work, and the odds of selling a screenplay — much like the check you'll take home — drastically decreases.

So how much do screenwriters make today? Not a lot (anymore).

SELLING A SCREENPLAY

5. How to sell your screenplay

Learning how to sell a screenplay is not easy — in any way shape or form — and part of that is because there’s no Hollywood HR department putting out ads for writers.

You can’t set up a brick and mortar store on Ventura Boulevard to sell a script. Yet, screenplays are sold every day.

The best way — and the most proven way — to sell a script is to use your own network. Who do you know who works in Hollywood? How can you help them and how can they help you? Who do they know?

Much like there’s six degrees of separation between anyone in the world and Kevin Bacon, there are likely two degrees of separation, max, between you and someone whose job it is to buy scripts.

How do you sell a screenplay? Start with who you know, and go from there. Another way is to become an expert on the subject through other means. Is your script about a mom? Become a successful blogger about being mom.

Is your script about the crazy stuff your dad says? Start a Twitter handle documenting every word and get as many followers as you can. That’s one way to sell a screenplay.

Having a following is like having a fastpass at an amusement park. It immediately puts you to the front of the line with any producer or agent you submit to, and it opens up a world of recognition.

Hollywood isn’t just about who you know, it’s also about who knows you. Additionally, if you lack industry contacts, winning a contest is a great way to gain recognition and get your work rewarded.

Regardless of which of these methods you choose, how to sell a screenplay always comes down to writing a great screenplay.

As we mentioned earlier, there are a number of ways to get your script in the hands of an executive. Despite the market breathing its last breaths, that doesn't mean your spec script is dead in the water. And those aren’t the only ways to get your foot in the Hollywood door.

Spec scripts can be fantastic opportunities to showcase talent and potential. They're calling cards, profile pieces to impress executives and agents with. They’ll sell scripts for you.

A good spec can be the tool to get you into a writers' room as a staff writer on a new TV show. It could also get you a general meeting with a studio executive who might put you in consideration for an open writing assignment (OWA).

OWAs are typically how movies get written these days. An idea is generated in house — or by a bigger name that doesn't want to actually do the writing — and assigned to a writer.

So to get that screenwriter salary today, you may need to be willing to accept that the spec you worked so hard on might not get made, but it will get you paid.

It’s usually not until someone has a good decade or two under their belt when they start to see the high six, maybe even seven-figure deals.

Studios still sign “term deals,” where writers are paid a high retainer to work exclusively for that studio’s properties, but not nearly as many as they used to.

That type of ingenuity, combined with how well-written his script was, got the attention of buzzy director Rodrigo Cortes. That got the attention of Hollywood.

Suddenly, the movie he was ready to shoot in his living room turned into a $2 million affair with a $21 million box office total. Not bad work.

So, while getting that elusive screenwriter salary might not be all that it used to be, there are still plenty of opportunities to be a screenwriter.

You don't have to submit a script to Netflix to get your movie on Netflix. Figuring out how to sell a screenplay without an agent yields new prospects every day. There are more opportunities than ever before, but competition has also increased dramatically.

SCRIPT FORMATTING

7. Check your script format

Alright, you want to know how to sell a movie script so you can answer firsthand the question, “How much do screenwriters make?”

Before all that, let's focus on an important way to make your script professionally viable: script formatting.

One of the easiest ways to properly format your screenplay is the use an industry standard script writing software that takes care of the majority of your script formatting for you.

StudioBinder provides a script writing solution that can be used from anywhere, any time. You can create your own screenplay, with an unlimited page count, for free, and you can do that right now.