Getting Lucky in Hollywood

It’s no secret that Hollywood producers and directors are always on the hunt for the next best movie concept. What’s not so obvious is where they’re looking to find these ideas for their next Blockbuster sweep.

Drumroll please…they’re looking at books (even self-published or unpublished ones)! Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Voyage Media is talking crazy.” But I promise you we’re not!

Think about it.

A book is already a fully baked idea, complete with an established plotline and solid characters and a built-in audience, whereas a screenplay may be unknown and in various stages of development.

Hollywood execs are all about immediate gratification when it comes to looking for their next project because, let’s face it, it’s all about the money. So from a buyer’s perspective, a book holds more weight than a screenplay because it’s more economically viable for them in that moment.

Take for instance the self-published book turned Academy award nominated Hollywood adaptation The Martian. Its author Andy Weir found wild success practically overnight after releasing the book chapter-by-chapter online, and then on Amazon’s self-publishing arm where it caught the attention of a producer…and the rest is history.

As the movie has begun to gain traction, so has the book, and vice versa. This is another reason Hollywood producers love a book adaptation…the book and the movie provide built-in cross-promotion. They feed off of each other which means more $$$ for everyone involved.

After word got out that The Martian was being made into a movie, the book debuted on the New York Times best-seller list at No. 12 in March of 2015. Since then, the book has sold more than 700,000 copies.

Hollywood needs new and fresh ideas, and Andy Weir gave them just that with his tale of an astronaut who mistakenly gets left on Mars after his crew presumed him dead in a mission gone awry. Weir’s approach to getting his book out there – by posting it one chapter at a time on the Internet – also garnered him a following and built an audience online.

All of these small steps that Weir took made it that much easier for a producer to take a look at his already-stellar work, see the following he had established for the book and himself, and make the deal.

Producers in Hollywood are extremely busy, so presenting your intellectual property in a creative and easy-to-understand way makes them that much more likely to give your project a shot.

Don’t get us wrong, Andy Weir is an extremely lucky guy, but he set himself up for success by first producing great material, and second putting it out there for others to enjoy.

You too, can work to creatively promote your work to make it easier for producers to find your IP and run with it.

And who knows…you could be the next Hollywood success story!