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Take it from someone who’s had incredible success in Hollywood: your screenplay had better be great if you’re trying to sell it! Screenwriter Doug Richardson (Die Hard 2, Mooseport, Bad Boys, Hostage) expanded upon that advice during a sit-down with SoCreate at the Central Coast Writer’s Conference.
Watch the video or read the transcript below to hear his take on the question he’s asked most often – now that my screenplay is done, how do I sell it?
“How do you sell your screenplay? That’s one of the most common questions I’m asked. If you’re selling a screenplay, I think that generally means Hollywood, because they’re the only ones who are really buying screenplays. And how to sell to them? I mean, aside from getting an agent first, because that’s the first filtering process you need to kind of get through, the best thing to sell your screenplay is to have an outstanding, bullet-proof, amazing, mind-blowing screenplay. Because, if it’s really great, and it really stands out, you’ll get it read by somebody, somehow.
You’re going to have to push hard. You’re going to have to find someone to read it, some agent to get to it, but they’ll get to it. And it will start to make its way up the ladder.
That is the best way to get it sold. Make it outstanding. It’s the first thing you gotta do.
Writers often will say to me, ‘I’ve got a screenplay. How do I sell it?’ And I say to them, ‘Is it amazing?’ And they say ‘Well I think it’s pretty good.’ And I say ‘When it’s amazing then come back and ask that.’”
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