Preview - Premium Post - Industry Deep Dive #1
What is the Wattpad Film & TV Development Fund, and why should you care?
First, let me apologize for not getting this week’s newsletter out sooner. Between family obligations and the July 4th holiday, I didn’t have enough time to write up the very first “Breakdown” Premium Industry Post! I’ve already started on it and should have it ready for you all by Friday.
I also wanted to apologize for not getting you news of the Imagine Impact x Netflix Accelerator Program sooner. This is a new program where Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s production company, Imagine, solicits movie ideas from the general public for possible development for Netflix. It’s a bit more complicated than that (you have to have a completed script as a screenwriting sample, for example.) But regardless, it’s a fantastic opportunity!
Now, they will be having four application windows (each based on a particular genre); but unfortunately, the first deadline is July 5th. I honestly thought it was later, and I’d be getting this edition out sooner, so I didn’t see the “whoopsie-do” on the horizon. However, this is a year-long process, and there are three more windows of opportunity when the application process will be open. If there’s not an email notification sign up, then I’d be sure to follow them on Twitter and elsewhere to get a sense of when the other windows will be opening.
Okay, back to our Premium Industry Deep Dive. In the full post, which will be available by Friday for Premium Subscribers, I’ll be taking an in-depth look at the previously announced Wattpad Film & TV Development Fund, which is a fund they’re setting aside to hire well-known (and sometimes award-winning), professional screenwriters to turn internally identified Wattpad stories into scripts. From the sound of it, they’ll also be leveraging their newly formed relationships with Hollywood (and international) producers and studios to help get these stories up on the screen.
What is the Wattpad Film & TV Development Fund, and Why Should You Care?
So, I was very, very excited to see the news that Wattpad was launching what they're calling the Wattpad Development Fund.
First off, if you don’t know what Wattpad is, here’s a very brief primer.
Wattpad started as on online writing site where any writer could post their story (or back in the day, their One Direction fanfiction) and readers could read, vote, and comment on their work. Over time, Wattpad evolved, as did the type and quality, of the content posted there. I’ll bet you didn’t know that Margaret Atwood, as well as several other NYT Bestselling authors, have posted their stories on the site?
In any event, although it had its fits and starts, by about 2016-2017, the site had really taken off as a place for new, or young, or unagented writers to come and post their work, build an audience, and possibly get their work seen and/or read by film and television producers (we’ll talk about the book publishing division in another post.)
Also, as a company, they’ve gotten a sizable investment from the likes of Tencent Holdings of China (to the tune of $51 million) and had created partnerships with some of Hollywood’s top producers and studios. By the end of 2019, Wattpad stories had spawned a hit Hulu series (Light as a Feather), one of the top Netflix films of 2018 (The Kissing Booth) and one of the top grossing independent films of 2019 (After.)
In essence, Wattpad had become a pretty big deal. And they’d done it by bucking the traditional Hollywood system and by leveraging both community and data in a way that no company had before.
Now, in order to put Wattpad’s most recent developments, and truly disruptive way of working, into perspective, I’ll be drawing on some insider knowledge. First and foremost, though, let me state that I am not and never have been a Wattpad employee, so there’s quite a bit of company knowledge I simply don’t have. However, I have worked closely on internal projects with many of their teams, namely their Stars and Studios teams; and as a writer, I’m involved in many of their programs by virtue of being a two-time Watty winner, a member of their Ambassador program, a member of their Stars program, and a member of their Paid Stories program.
So, all in all, I have seen—rather close up—how some of their IP development works and can compare that to what I’ve seen from both the talent agency as well as the studio side, drawing from my time working at ICM and HBO. And as I’ve stated before, while I won’t be revealing any State secrets or proprietary information, you will be getting a somewhat rare inside view.
This is all to say that my goal in doing this Industry Deep Dive is to shed some light on a very opaque process (basically, how a book or story goes from relative obscurity to either the big or small screen) and how disruptions to this traditional process might create opportunities for the likes of you and me. 😊
Here’s a preview of the article coming, later this week.
Yes, it’s true: we are at “Peak TV.” Peak TV refers to the plethora of content produced for the ridiculous number of new outlets (largely international and regional streamers) emerging each year. At last count, there were around 530 scripted TV series broadcast in 2019 in the U.S. alone. The content explosion is largely due to the growth of OTT platforms. OTT stands for “Over-The-Top.” (I think it should have been “Off-The-Telly” but no one consulted me on the acronym :-). In any event, these OTT outlets have allowed for the streaming of an enormous amount of content (Film, TV, and Reality TV) directly into our homes and onto our devices. Movies haven’t fared as well with the consolidation of production houses and studios and the focus on big-budget, tentpole films. However, we shall see how the movies that had to shift their premieres online, due to COVID, fare and if the film industry will experience a new level of growth from that event.
Regardless, Peak TV has created more opportunities than ever to get non-traditional content on the air. Now, while I keep seeing folks asserting that this means there are vastly more opportunities for regular folks, like you and me, to get our stories up on a screen somewhere, that’s not really the case—certainly not to the extent that many would have you believe. And while it’s certainly easier than it was, say ten or twenty years ago, for an undiscovered or non-blockbuster work to get adapted into a film or TV show, and there are a few outlets available that have opened up their submission processes to the public (like the Imagine Impact + Netflix opportunity I alluded to in the preview), the chances of your book, story, or idea—especially if it’s non-traditionally published—being made into a film or TV show really just went from .00001% to .0001%. And those are, truthfully, lottery winning odds. However, all hope is not lost!
So, as I mentioned, on the surface, Peak TV looks like a great opportunity for the layman. But in order to understand how it can benefit you, you first have to understand how this whole Hollywood game really works.
The skinny on how Hollywood really works
You see there are a ton of folks who used to work in film (largely indie film when there was an indie film market) or who are currently working as TV writers on shows now on the air who, under the old model, would have needed to work for 10+ years AND have caught a bit of luck to be able to pitch their own shows to a studio or network. For the most part, they were considered staff and not creators, so it was difficult for them to bring new ideas to the people who could make them and be taken seriously. But now, with the enormous need for content, it’s more often than not these folks who are reaping the benefits of the content explosion and Peak TV. Why? Because even though they may not have a ton of experience running or executive producing a show or movie, they have enough experience and connections to be a much safer bet than Joe Schmo from Topeka, Kansas. I mean, it’s true that Joe Schmo might have written the most brilliant script in the world, but without connections and without him being based in Los Angeles, the chances of that script or story getting any kind of financial backing is very, very small.
Now, this being Hollywood…
Okie-dokie! That’s it for now. The rest of the article is currently only for Premium Subscribers, so be sure to subscribe! But if you don’t want to, or can’t, become a subscriber right now, no problem! You can still sign up for free and get the weekly Breakdown newsletter with highlights from, and commentary about, the publishing and entertainment industry, and more specifically, the intersection of the two.
If you want to read this article, however, as well as future Industry Deep Dives and Writer’s Workshop posts be sure to subscribe! (P.S. - The next Writer’s Workshop critique should be ready by the beginning of August.)
Not ready to subscribe? No problem! There’s plenty of free content in the archive, including our very first critique in the Writer’s Workshop #1. You can check it all out here - Post Archive.
I hope you find this preview intriguing and the final article helpful. I’d love to know your thoughts about this latest opportunity to get our works onto the big (or little) screen.
I hope your summer is going well and I’ll talk to you all soon!
~ Paula G.