3 Things About First-Look Deals
How Screenwriters Can Secure the Bag
You may have heard the terms “first-look deal”, first right of refusal, overall deal and more. In this post, I give you an easy to follow breakdown in layman's terms then help you understand what a first look deal is and what it means for you as a screenwriter.
First Look Deal Defined
According to Wikipedia, A first-look deal is any contract containing a clause granting, usually for a fee or other consideration that covers a specified period of time, a pre-emption right, right of first refusal, or right of first offer (also called a right of first negotiation) to another party, who then is given the first opportunity to buy outright, co-own, invest in, license, etc., something that is newly coming into existence or on the market for the first time or after an absence, such as intellectual property (manuscript, musical composition, invention, artwork, business idea, etc.) or real property (real estate).
In the film industry specifically, a first look deal is an agreement between a writer and an independent producer or studio (production company) or between an independent producer and a film studio in which the potential buyer (producer or studio) of a not-yet-written script or in-development film or television project pays a development…
