I Didnt Wanna Do This [MATyeY4FwAK]
Purchase: The Divine Nine: Purchase: Blackballed: Tomi Adeyemi publicly condemned the film adaptation of Children of Blood and Bone. Paramount reportedly paid seven figures for it. So who actually owns the story now? I'm Lawrence Ross, author of seven books including the bestselling The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities and Blackballed: The Black and White Politics of Race on America's Campuses. I also hold an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, and I've had a book in development as an adaptation for the past five years. So I'm going to break down exactly what happens when a book gets sold to Hollywood, and why so many authors are shocked by an outcome they already agreed to. In this video I explain how book copyright actually works, why publishers essentially rent your book while you keep the copyright, and how rights reversion lets you get a book back once sales sunset. Then I explain what changes completely when you sell a screenplay or sell film and TV rights, because at that point the studio owns the property and you do not. I cover what an executive producer credit really means, why nine writers may touch a single feature script, why casting decisions are commercial decisions and not artistic ones, and why the director's vision replaces the author's vision by design. I also make the argument that a public condemnation of your own adaptation is a career decision, not just an artistic one, and that the people who advocated for your book inside the industry carry the cost with you. Black authors are underserved in adaptation, and every project that works opens a door for the next writer. The art part and the commodity part are two different things. Understand that before you sign, not after.