Fast Learner said:
Where does it say they're going into pre-production? Martin's SO specifically says they're not. In Hollywoodspeak you acquire the option to make a film or series from a book, and you pay money for being the only person/company who has the option to make a film or series from that book. People get paid. Authors make hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars from options, options that never turn into films. His SO specifically says it's an option on his messageboards: where do you get that it's not an option?
Because when books or scripts get "optioned", they are preserved by a studio for a brief period of time to consider whether or not they will acquire the rights on an exclusive basis.
That is a mere option. It is a legal exclusive interest which gives Party A the exclusive option to buy something from Party B during the term of the option.
Mere options happen all the time anytime anyone reviews a script and they are hardly newsworthy. Options are somtimes paid for, but it is unusual to pay a lot for them.
When you buy the rights, you buy them either outright or for a period of time, within which the licensed property must be filmed or the rights revert back to the author. Some people call this an option - but that isn't what it is. That's a rights acquisition for an agreed sum which may be defeasible on the happening of an event (failure to release a film by 2011, say)- a very different sort of deal than a mere option.
I think DragonLance must have been optioned a dozen times before a movie deal was finally signed last year.
The purchase of rights - which is what has happened in this case, is not a mere option. It does not necessarily commit the studio to production - but it is not a mere option. GRRM notes that the deal for the rights closed a few days back.
There is a distinction on a legal and customary basis as to what a mere option is - and this isn't one. GRRM is committed to write an episode and to exec-produce. That is not a mere option. If George happens to call it that on his website in the subject line of his blog post - - sorry George, that isn't what an
option is.
When writers and producers and exec producers for a project have been hired and they are looking for shooting locations - that's called pre-production.
It is not only casting and spending money on costumes, props and sets - which is what you may have come to think pre-production is. While that is pre-production as well - that does not make the current explorations any less steps in the pre-production process.
People get too involved with the term "greenlit". What is meant by greenlighting is that project funds are supplied for casting, principal photography, physical assets and post-production costs. That's greenlighting.
Sometimes it comes in stages. Weta Workshop created a boatload of propos and costumes before the movie itself was greenlit for actual casting and photography. The practice varies from film to film.
Greenlighting does not mean a mere commitment of money committed for pre-production exploration, expected casting costs, basic scripts and budget exploration. That's a separate set of costs authorized in film production without committing to
actual production.
