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Books to Film: Local Publisher Hard at Work by Reynard Seifert
Pat Walsh with Life is a Strange Place by Frank Holdon, which was made into the film Barry Munday . photo R. Seifert
"Great books make lousy movies," said Pat Walsh, editor-in-chief of MacAdam/Cage, one of the major independent publishers in the United States and the world, conveniently based in San Francisco. Conversely, great films can be made from bad books. "The Godfather and The Bourne Identity," he said. "Fight Club was the same."
Pat Walsh is an intense, charismatic and energetic guy. Armed with wit to spare and a pragmatic demeanor that burns through BS like a hot knife through butter, he's just the sort of guy one might expect to find at the helm of a respectable publishing house like MacAdam/Cage.
He is also the author of two non-fiction books with really long titles: How To Win The World Series Of Poker (Or Not): An All American Tale and 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published And 14 Reasons Why It Just Might. His career began at the San Francisco Chronicle but he left when David Poindexter, the owner of a successful direct mail business, decided to combine his love for literature with his knowledge of printing to form MacAdam/Cage.
Among the many debut novels by unknown talents that MacAdam/Cage has published in the last ten years is Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. It is a cleverly written contemporary romance as well as a sci-fi romp through time. They found it in the "slush pile" - a place where, at most publishing houses, good manuscripts go to die and bad ones go to be buried. But by the time they decided to publish it, another company had already made an offer. "We nearly lost it," said Pat Walsh. But Niffenegger, who grew up with a punk rock background, decided to go with the underdog, and MacAdam/Cage released the novel on New Year's Day 2003.
Time Traveler's Wife quickly shot onto the New York Times's best seller list after novelist Scott Turrow endorsed it on the Today Show and has sold some 2.5 million copies since its release. Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B Entertainment, optioned the rights prior to its publication, and the screenplay was adapted by Bruce Joel Rubin, who wrote Ghost. The film was directed by Robert Schwentke, a German film director known for the films Tattoo and Flightplan, and stars Rachel McAdams, Eric Bana and Ron Livingston.
So far, six other films have been successfully adapted from MacAdam/Cage titles, among them Love Song For Bobby Long, Girl In Hyacinth Blue, Infidelity, Me And Orson Welles, Barry Munday, and The Pipe, a Jack Pendarvis short story adapted into a short film. The most recent of these, Barry Munday, stars Colin Hanks, Malcolm McDowell, and Chloe Sevigny, and is still seeking distribution. Richard Linklater directed Me And Orson Welles; reportedly, Linklater is self-distributing the film, which stars Zac Effron and Claire Daines.
While most publishing companies don't hold their own film rights, MacAdam/Cage does. Around 20% of their catalog has been optioned, often more than once. On average their first-time option deals of 12 to 18 months go for around $5,000 - ironically or not, this figure is not far from their average author advance - with the rate climbing each time the option is renewed. Hence, film options are an excellent way for authors to earn some extra change and since "bad books make good films," well...
Purchasing an "option" means you have dibs on purchasing the film rights while writing the screenplay and working on pre-production for the film. Since this is a complicated process that takes years of work, it is necessary to have this "option" available. Upon exercising the option, a deal is made to purchase the rights to the film. Freelance agents shop books around to various individuals and studios. When books are particularly sought after, the agents will hold auctions for the rights, privately handled affairs involving the interested parties. Essentially, one party makes a bid, which is shared with the another bidder, until the bids are high enough to be acceptable to the seller. Occasionally, there is a winner-take-all high-bid contest in which everyone is given just one blind chance to name their price.
Contrary to popular belief, not only big Hollywood studios can afford to purchase the rights to a book in order to get a terrific original story. The cost of the option is dependent upon the total budget of the film. Roughly 2.5% of the budget goes towards acquisitions and other fees associated with purchasing the story. So smaller companies like MacAdam/Cage often work with what they can get. And with the overwhelming number of underappreciated books out there in the world, there is a good chance of finding the kind of story a larger audience might appreciate, given a new medium.
Pat Walsh has often negotiated deals for as low as $500, with the promise of receiving a higher percentage of profits in the long run than they would otherwise request. "There just has to be balance somewhere," he said. "Either we get the money we need before or after the film makes money."
This ability to negotiate and work with talented if struggling individuals is the sort of attitude that has made MacAdam/Cage so highly respected amongst the literati. They are known for helping their authors more than a lot of companies, even giving out stipends to some authors while they work on finishing a novel - sometimes even out of their very own pockets.
It seems as though all of the options fees and film rights purchases would help the publishing companies by padding their funds...
leading me to think that perhaps the publishing industry might not be able to survive without Hollywood. But in reality, Pat Walsh explained, it is Hollywood that couldn't survive without the publishing industry.
"Hollywood could definitely pay more," said Walsh. Since the film industry relies so heavily upon the publishing industry for material, it follows that they should be making more of an effort to support and sustain the creative well from which they drink. Ironically, the screenwriter often ends up with a few more zeros at the end of their paycheck than the author of the book from which the screenplay was based.
Moreover, authors are rarely if ever allowed to write their own screenplay. "They don't like to deal with authors," Walsh explained, citing several examples of films that wind up being almost nothing like their source material. Since the stories are so important to the authors, it is often difficult for them to adapt to the demands of the film medium.
Rather than asking the authors for advice during the adaptation process, filmmakers prefer to pamper the authors while the film is being made. "They put them up in a four-star hotel, give them a satin jacket and chair with their name on it, and don't ask any questions."
When her novel was optioned in 2003 Audrey Niffenegger told Canada's National Post "I've got my little movie that runs in my head. And I'm kind of afraid that will be changed or wiped out by what somebody else might do with it. And it is sort of thrilling and creepy, because now the characters have an existence apart from me."
In March of this year Audrey Niffenegger's new novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, was put up for auction. MacAdam/Cage bid (for them) a record high $100,000. It is estimated to have sold for approximately $4.8 million to a division of Simon & Schuster. The novel will be released in the fall of this year. The film version of Time Traveler's Wife will be in theaters everywhere next month.Posted on Jul 13, 2009 - 06:38 PM