Make Your Story a Movie: Adapting Your Book or Idea for Hollywood

Have you ever wondered why some books and stories are adapted into movies, and others aren’t? Or wished you could sit down and pick the brains of the people whose stories have been adapted—or the screenwriters, producers, and directors who adapted them?

Author, screenwriter, and producer John Robert Marlow has done it for you. He spoke to book authors, playwrights, comic book creators and publishers, as well as Hollywood screenwriters, producers and directors responsible for adapting fictional and true stories into Emmy-winning TV shows, Oscar-winning films, billion-dollar megahits and smaller independents. Then he talked to the entertainment attorneys who made the deals.

He came away with a unique understanding of adaptations—an understanding he shares in this workshop: which stories make good source material (and why); what Hollywood wants (and doesn’t); what you can (and can’t) get in a movie deal; how to write and pitch your story to maximize the chances of a Hollywood adaptation, how much (and when) you can expect to be paid—and why adaptations now rule at both the box office (16 of the top 20 all-time highest-grossing films) and the Academy Awards (6 of this year’s 9 Best Picture nominees).

This workshop contains the distilled experience of creators, storytellers and others whose works have earned over $50 billion worldwide.

Whether you’re looking to sell film rights, adapt your own story (alone or with help), or option and adapt someone else’s property—this workshop is for you.