Participation
From ForcaWiki, the simple encyclopedia
| In one sentence | A contract that gives someone a share of a movie's profits, if it earns any at all. |
|---|---|
| Category | Film and Television |
| Related | Point, Waterfall, Profits |
Imagine you help a friend build and sell birdhouses, and instead of a flat fee, you agree to take a slice of whatever profit the birdhouses actually make. If they sell well, you do well. If they barely sell, or cost more to build than they earn, you might get nothing at all.
That kind of deal is called a participation in the movie business: a contract giving someone, maybe a director, a writer, or a star, a share of the Profits a movie earns, if it earns any at all. Unlike a fixed fee, a participation deal ties someone's earnings directly to how well the movie actually does.
How much someone gets
A participation is usually expressed using points, where each point equals one percent of the movie's profits. Whether someone actually collects on their participation, and how soon, often depends on where they land in the movie's Waterfall, the order in which everyone gets paid out of the money the film earns.
Fun facts
- A participation deal can end up paying someone far more than any flat fee ever could, if the movie becomes a massive hit.
- It can also pay out nothing at all, since profits are never guaranteed no matter how good the movie turns out to be.
- Movie profit definitions can get so complicated and hotly negotiated that Hollywood jokes about "net profits," since a movie can earn huge box office receipts and still show barely any profit on paper once every cost is subtracted.