Your Deal Closes And Studio Development Begins

Once your deal with the studio is finalized, the development process officially begins. This is the part of the process when you start strategizing about taking the project out to networks and streamers. It’s also the first time you’ll receive detailed creative notes from the studio. You may have received some general feedback after the initial pitch, but now the notes will be more in-depth. The studio may want to hear the pitch again, review pitch pages, or—if a script already exists—reread it before setting up a notes call.

Most of the time, there aren’t major changes at this stage since the studio already liked the project enough to move forward. However, in some cases, the notes can be extensive, requiring significant revisions. Your producers will work closely with you to help navigate and interpret the notes.

Packaging the Project

At this stage, discussions about packaging begin—this is when the studio determines whether additional elements, such as a director or lead actor, should be attached to the project. If you’re a newer writer without many credits or development experience, there may also be conversations about attaching a showrunner.

Packaging can be a tricky process. It often takes a long time to secure key attachments, and there’s an element of guesswork involved—like trying to anticipate which names will excite network or streamer executives.

But sometimes this can backfire. I’ve been in situations where a streamer liked everything about a project except the showrunner we had attached—someone who had only been involved with the project for a few weeks. In that case, we had to have an awkward conversation with the showrunner, letting them know we couldn’t move forward with them because it was our only offer. 

On the flip side, I’ve also taken out projects with filmmakers whose movies have made billions of dollars and have worked with A-list movie stars, only for the TV execs to shrug, dislike their past work, or, surprisingly, not even recognize the director’s name. The divide between what excites film executives and TV executives can be unpredictable.

Sometimes, studios have overall deals with showrunners, and they can reach out to them directly if they believe they’d be a good fit for a project. This is the best-case scenario since it typically results in the fastest response and easiest path to attach a showrunner. 

Refining the Material and Attaching Talent

During this time, you’ll continue refining the material, incorporating studio notes, and preparing for the pitch process with buyers. On average, projects go through around three rounds of revisions—meaning you’ll submit three drafts of the pitch pages or your script, with the studio providing feedback each time. Some projects require more, while others need only one round of revisions. It all depends on how much work the studio believes is necessary before taking it out to networks. 

While you work on revisions, you, your producers, and the studio will also be compiling lists of potential directors, actors, and showrunners if it is decided that packaging is necessary for the project.  Your producer or development execs will take the lead in creating these lists, considering who would be the best fit for the project, but obviously want to hear who the writer is excited about. Calls will be made with the studio to discuss the options on the list, with the goal of narrowing them down to a consensus top five or so.

The key is to focus on talent that is both attainable and adds value to the project. Going after A-list directors who have little interest in television is often a waste of time—especially if it slows down the process. 

It also helps to target directors or actors represented by the same agency as the writer or producer, as this can streamline the process and eliminate red tape. I’ve found that directors who have their own production companies or producing partners is often the most effective route, as it bypasses agents who may have different priorities.

Securing attachments can be a lengthy process. The tricky balance is submitting to only one or two people at a time—so it feels exclusive—while also keeping the process moving. Typically, I give potential talent two to four weeks to review the material before moving on to the next name. If you don’t secure any attachments after four or five submissions, it’s usually best to move forward without attaching talent. You don’t want the studio to lose confidence in the project due to repeated rejections or for the development process to lose momentum.

That said, attachments aren’t always necessary. I’ve sold far more projects without them than with them. And even after spending months securing what we thought were the perfect attachments—ones that we thought would make the project undeniable in the marketplace—we still received passes.

Visual Aids and Presentation

During the studio development stage, your producer will also work on enhancing the project’s pitch presentation with visual aids. These can range from simple lookbooks (collections of movie stills that reflect the tone and aesthetic of the project)—to more elaborate rip reels (which are like trailers for your show composed of edited clips from various films)

With the rise of Zoom pitches, I’ve seen some incredibly elaborate presentations. While they aren’t essential, buyers generally appreciate them. A strong visual aid won’t make or break a sale, but it can help convey the project’s vision more effectively. 

Typically, a producer, an executive from their office, or even the writer will take the lead on assembling these materials. Sometimes, you are lucky and have an incredibly talented assistant or intern in the office who is an amazing graphic designer.  Personally, I was a complete luddite before Zoom pitches became the norm, but now I’m well-versed in Keynote and other design software. 

I’ve also outsourced rip reels to editors in the past—sometimes with the studio covering the cost if they’re willing to invest a few thousand dollars into the pitch. In some cases, writers themselves excel at creating these visual aids, making my job a bit easier. I still miss the days when a simple poster board—straight out of a middle school science fair—was good enough, and we would lug it around town to each pitch. But times have changed, and the industry has adapted.

If you are fortunate enough to secure a director attachment, they might even create the rip reels themselves or use their preferred editor. Some of the best rip reels I have ever seen have come directly from directors.

It should also be noted that if you do secure an attachment for your project, the studio will then need to negotiate deals with all of the talent. This can considerably slow down the timeline for taking the project to networks. Additionally, most talent will also have their own notes, so once their deal is closed, you will be back in revision mode. There are always more notes, unfortunately!! 

These timelines are always hard to predict. I have seen some projects taken to the marketplace a month after a writer’s deal closed, while others did not go out until a year and a half later because we attached a director and an actor and then had to wait for both their deals to close and for their schedules to open up so they could attend the pitches.

Once everything is in place and the creative is signed off on, and everyone attached agrees that the pitch is ready to be taken to the marketplace, the studio—incorporating input from all parties—will determine which buyers (networks and streamers) the project will be pitched to. 

The number of buyers has significantly dwindled over the last five or six years. In my recent experience, having six buyers interested in hearing the pitch is considered good. As of today, thee only really viable places to pitch a premium project are the are seven major streamers (Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Peacock, Paramount+, Hulu, and Max), along with premium networks (HBO, Starz) and basic cable (FX, AMC), plus others like USA and TNT which have minimal scripted. development. tHowever, many buyers are selective when deciding to hear pitches. The network might decline a pitch if they don’t like the logline, the writer or attached elements, or the fact that it comes from an outside studio.

I’ve also been told by many places in recent years that they are full on development and cannot take any more big-budget projects because their pipeline is already filled. Additionally, platforms like Hulu/FX and Paramount+ primarily buy from internal studios, and there is always confusion over whether one should pitch HBO and Max or both- same with  Hulu and FX. 

If your pitch is targeted for broadcast, you can typically still approach the traditional four networks—NBC, FOX, CBS, and ABC. It should be noted that these days, the NBC, USA, and Peacock execs are the same, as well as ABC and Hulu for the most part.

Just to show you how much has changed in a short amount of time, back in 2017, I had a pitch that we took to 15 different buyers, including streamers, premium cable, basic cable, and broadcast (HBO, Showtime, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, WGN, TBS, USA, IFC, Cinemax, FX, FOX, Starz, AMC, Comedy Central).

The studio will reach out to most of these networks to schedule the pitch and build excitement. If the producer has a strong relationship with a high-ranking network executive, they might call directly. Ideally, you want to schedule all the pitches within the same week—or at least within a two-week span—so that everyone hears it around the same time, and you can potentially spark a bidding war.

If you have a spec script, you might strategize with your team on whether it’s best to send the script ahead of time. If the network responds positively to the material, you can then set up a follow-up pitch. In some cases, however, the best approach is to hold a meeting first, pitch the project, and then leave the script behind for executives to read afterward.

I have seen both strategies succeed. Personally, I’m always a fan of getting face time with a network and building excitement before they read the script. However, I’ve also seen network executives become annoyed when they had to sit through a pitch when they could have just read the script and made a decision.

The most frustrating scenario, though, is when you send the script to networks in advance, only for no one to want to meet and hear the pitch. I’ve seen this happen after months of hard work, leaving me with the difficult task of delivering that news to the writer.

In the past, you had to drive all over town to do pitches in person. You might start your day in Burbank, head to Century City by lunch, and finish in Santa Monica. These days, almost everything is done over Zoom. I do miss pitching in person, but I definitely don’t miss being stuck in traffic and worrying about missing a pitch. One of the hardest tasks during my assistant days was organizing a pitch schedule to ensure that all the Westside networks were booked on the same day.

Once the pitches are scheduled, you might do one or two more practice sessions with the whole team. Then, the project is in the hands of the TV gods, and you just hope that all the months of work pay off with at least one offer.

The pitch meetings themselves are pretty standard. Typically, there are around two network executives in the room, though sometimes there may be more depending on the network. Your producer or studio executive will set up the pitch, hype you up, and explain why they love the project and why it deserves to be made. Then, you deliver your 20- to 25-minute presentation.

Like pitches to producers and studios, the pitch is all about the performance. It needs to be entertaining and engaging—don’t just read off a paper. Make sure you are well-lit and have a non-distracting background. You are telling a story and trying to get the executives invested in the series and its characters. You also need to convince them that you can deliver a hit show and a great script. 

Essentially, you need to provide the executives with enough ammunition to sell the project up the chain of execs if they don’t have direct buying power (although, most of the time, there is at least one executive in the pitch who can buy a show if they like it).

After you finish pitching, there will be a Q&A session. Like the producer and studio pitch, this is a good time to explain details and reveal information that you couldn’t fit into the pitch. It’s wise to prepare for potential questions so that you have well-thought-out answers ready. Truly excellent pitchers know how to set up certain elements or leave lingering plot threads that prompt thoughtful questions during Q&A, allowing them to deliver impressive, pre-prepared answers.

Sometimes, you strike gold and the executives buy the pitch in the room. I have only experienced this on four occasions, usually when the studio we were working with had an in-house network and was incentivized to make a purchase. But it does happen!! It’s a great feeling and takes a lot of pressure off.

Typically, you’ll hear back within 2-3 days, though sometimes it’s as soon as a few hours or as long as a week. Often, a longer response time is a good sign, it usually means that the project was well-received but needs sign-off from higher-ups.

The good news is that you only need one offer!  While it’s great to have multiple buyers interested, if even one place raises their hand, you still have a sold project!

Unfortunately, if you receive no offers, the project is most likely dead. 

You can regroup and see if there are any additional networks you haven’t pitched to, but these days, with so few viable buyers, you usually pitch to all the potential targets in the first round. There have been instances where a network liked certain elements of the pitch and gave notes, then offered to hear the pitch again after revisions—which has led to an eventual sale—but this scenario is very rare these days.

If you are fortunate enough to receive multiple offers, you will wait for all of them to come in and then discuss the variables with your team. The offers are usually quite similar, though some networks might sweeten the deal by ordering a backup script (a second episode) or a guaranteed series bible. These incentives will increase how much money you make total since you make more money for each added element. Ultimately, the decision comes down to which network is the best fit for the project, at which place does the project have the best shot at getting made, and how excited the network executives are about the project, as well as making sure they don’t have too many similar projects in development.

Once you make your final decision about what network you are going with, the project goes back to the Business Affairs department at the network. Since most of the major deal points have been hammered out during the studio deal, this process is much quicker. Often, it’s a matter of the studio finalizing their deal with the network—whether it will be a cost-plus deal (with the studio receiving a large upfront fee if the project gets made, based on a percentage of the budget) or if the studio will deficit-finance the project as a traditional studio.

Once the network deal is closed, the project is officially set up at the network! A kickoff call with the network will then be scheduled.