Originally Posted by brianeccleston:
“NBC have ordered a script commitment with penalty to "The Italian Job" tv series.”
Originally Posted by gilesb:
“What does that mean?”
Originally Posted by brianeccleston:
“Im not totally sure. But i presume it means that if they dont make a pilot from the script they will have to pay a penalty. Depending on what the penalty fee is, it may well be cheaper to make it into a pilot.”
Originally Posted by JCR:
“It means that the network has to pay a large fine, possibly seven figures, to the producers if the pilot is not shown on tv. However they'd also film two endings, an open ending for if it's getting more episodes & a closed ending if they decide to air it as a tv movie, so the penalty is still no guarantee there will be a series.”
A similar tactic is used by the US networks when negotiating contracts with their late night hosts... how affective it is really depends on how much the penalty is – although not always.
In 2004 NBC was desperate to keep Conan O’Brien (the then host of Late Night at 12:30am) with the network, so his contract was for another 5 years, and then in 2009 he would take over The Tonight Show (at 11:30pm). If they didn’t keep to this promise O’Brien was to receive a $45million pay out. Long story short, things didn’t go as planned and O’Brien was host of The Tonight Show for just 7 months – and received most of the payout (about $35million I believe).
Similarly, CBS promised Craig Ferguson (the then host of The Late Late Show at 12:30am) that he would get first dibs at The Late Show when David Letterman retires. If they didn’t keep to this promise Ferguson was to receive a $10million pay out. Again, long story short, CBS decided Ferguson was the right person to replace Letterman so opted to pay out the penalty clause rather than take the risk of giving him the gig.
