The first level of investment by the producer is the option payment, which confers the right to develop the script and raise money on it. Option payments are small, but agents aim to get the maximum money up front as guarantee of the producer's intentions. Those intentions may not be honourable, as Jenny Colgan, now entertaining Guardian readers with her dispatches from LA, has learned. The British book that holds the record for its sojourn in Development Hell is Douglas Adams's Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, eagerly awaited for 20 years. A producer may even buy an option to prevent a book being filmed, fearing it may damage the market for another of his or her projects.
Development costs cripple British producers.
For a writer, a story beginning with a smaller option from a sincere British producer could have a happier ending than one that began with big bucks bullshit from Hollywood. Film is too powerful a medium to be surrendered to market forces. Our cinema is the biggest and brightest mirror we can hold up to our nature and we need it to see who we are and what we believe. The French, whose domestic audience is the same size as ours, have never consented to see themselves through American eyes, but guarded their golden stories and pumped up commercial muscle. If we are ever to have a healthy film industry, our native producers must be allowed to bid for the best material.