Mitigating Risk

I took a producing class when I was in film school, hoping to gain some insight into the industry while I concurrently worked to improve my craft. One of the most basic of these insights was the concept of “mitigating risk.”

Producing a film is an incredibly risky endeavor. If I were to independently produce a film and wanted you to help me pay for it, I would bring you a business prospectus that offers you a share in the film’s profits in exchange for your cash to spend making it. By law, my business prospectus would require a page that warns you that you will probably never see your money ever again. As far as investments go, making a film is just about the stupidest thing you could ever do with your money.

It’s very difficult to make a film. And expensive. And even if you succeed in completing the project, you still have to spend about $30 million to create enough copies of the film to go around the country and play on thousands of screens and to buy enough advertising to actually get butts into multiplex seats. (These two expenses are called P & A, Prints and Advertising.)

Nevertheless, films get made every year. Somebody somewhere must be willing to risk some money. They are either incredibly foolish, or somebody somewhere else is somehow mitigating the risk.

There are very few ways to make sure people are going to see a movie. One way is to hire a famous movie star. Another way is to release the movie on a day when people are likely to go to the movies and won’t have much besides your movie to choose from. But the most popular method of mitigating risk in the film industry is to take a concept, character, or story that already has the attention of the audience and make a movie around it.

This could be an adaptation of a famous novel or comic. Or it could be a sequel to an already successful movie, or a remake of an already successful movie. Sometimes, it could just be an idea based on history, legend, or familiar myth. If you can write a film that is based on something else, you’re already in better shape than someone who came up with a brand new idea. (Not that there is any such thing, since there’s nothing new under the sun. But you get my drift.)

Take The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Sequels mitigate risk. Films based on pre-existing concepts, such as a theme-park ride, also mitigate risk. Theme-park rides already owned by the production and distribution company don’t have to be optioned, which saves money. And lastly, the ride itself was an attractive portrayal of the bacchanalian lifestyle of the eighteenth century pirate, a familiar and iconic concept in itself. Which mitigates risk.

This film grossed over $1 billion worldwide, which surprises no one.

Many people bemoan the lack of original stories in contemporary commercial cinema and claim that Hollywood is out of new ideas. That’s idiotic. There are thousands of new ideas every day, and hundreds of good original scripts get read by producers every year. Some production companies compile lists of the best scripts that circulate the industry every year, and every year new writers win awards and fellowships with their expertly crafted original work. Hollywood is like a giant anthill full of busy little workers who are building beautiful, delicate, nuanced stories that will win them acclaim and a career of inspiring work. (Do I flatter myself that I am one of these industrious little bodies? Absolutely. If you don’t think I should give myself such credit, you can kiss my ass.) But those scripts very rarely get made. They’re too risky. Instead, those scripts will get the writer work on some other film that is an adaptation of last year’s bestseller, or a sequel to a comic book adaptation, or a remake of a half-remembered comedy from the fifties.

Another of my college professors had his own spin on the risk mitigation theory. He would say, “everyone in Hollywood wants to be second, but no one wants to be first.” For instance, one writer I know reported that producers these days will look at a well-crafted script with perfect three-act structure and ask the writer if there’s any way he can make it non-linear. Because people like those non-linear stories nowadays. These are the same douchebags who passed on Memento ten years ago. They’re happy to tag along, but have no desire to do anything ground-breaking…or risky.

In looking over the latest UTA list, I once again felt hopelessness descend each time I read an ad for a job that required one to two years of experience. (Agency preferred, of course.) And it occurred to me that the people doing the hiring are all just afraid. They want to be the second to take a risk on me, but not the first. Without a year of experience at some other company, no one has any way to mitigate their risk in hiring me.

I understood when I decided to try my hand as a screenwriter that I would probably not get my original stories made into movies. I understood that it would be too risky, that it would be reasonable for a producer to fear such a risk. And I thought I understood that it would be hard to find work without lots of contacts, but I figured that I could make contacts as I went along. But now I understand that the fear of loss and the fear of risk have trickled down to the very least of every decision made by any industry executive. It isn’t just about wasting millions of dollars on the wrong film. It’s also about wasting a few weeks on the wrong assistant. I now know that I can’t get a job because everyone in this industry is too afraid to hire me as the front office receptionist. I’m a risk. And even the smallest risk is terrifying.

I’m a little bit discouraged by the fact that I am trying to be a part of a business that is governed by fear, but I am doing my best not to be afraid. Somebody somewhere will eventually decide to take a risk on me. After all, someone in Hollywood eventually has to be first, so that everyone else can clamor to be second. It's just a matter of time. I hope.

I don't fear.