I wrote The Krone Experiment long ago, its sequel, Krone Ascending, more recently. I still have aspirations to write at least a third book in the series. My son, Rob, is a film maven. He and I wrote a screenplay of The Krone Experiment, and Rob made it into a micro-budget full-length film here in Austin. It did not open the doors we had hoped at the time although we both tried flogging it in various ways. We remain convinced that it would make an exciting film if done with a proper budget and special effects. While the project lay fallow for many years, the development of streaming represents a new market and new domain for material. The Queen's Gambit was a successful streamed film based on a decades-old novel. "Why not us?" I thought.
I stumbled on a connection to the agent who represented the estate of Walter Tevis, the author of the original novel, The Queen's Gambit. We seemed to have a constructive Email conversation until she asked for our specific aspirations for what we would want from a production company; payment for the rights to the novel and screenplay, and perhaps an opportunity to write a treatment for a series. She dropped us like a rock and suggested we talk to one of the big artist agencies in LA. I still do not know what happened.
I poked around on the Web and came up with some possibilities for LA film agents while being basically leery of the prospects of a cold call. I drafted a pitch letter and was on the verge of sending it to one agency when Rob thought about it and suggested we be cautious. We have a substantial intellectual property (IP); books, screenplay, film. Are we sure we have the rights in place? What about the Japanese translation?
That led me to contact a local attorney, the spouse of an astronomy colleague, who has connections to the local music industry. I had tried to talk to her a decade ago, but she had felt our film project was too far from her expertise at the time. Since then, it turns out, she has had considerable experience with TV and streaming. To our pleasant surprise, she agreed to meet us last Friday at a pleasant hole-in-the-wall bistro for a pancake and coffee breakfast to talk, pro bono. She completely agreed with Rob. We really need to get our ducks in line before approaching an agent. Make sure the rights to the books (hardbacks, paperbacks, Ebooks, foreign rights), the screenplay (which was optioned twice), and the film (actors were unpaid, but promised a share of future profit) are secure. Do formal copyrights with the Library of Congress. Maybe form a limited liability corporation to hold all the IP rights. Establish and activate a fan base. Many people have read the books and seen the film, but how to draw on that? Update The Krone Experiment website (www.thekroneexperiment.com). Hire a generalist attorney, maybe a literary lawyer in Austin, to handle the IP. Beware publicists, there are a lot of bad ones out there.
That's a heavy lift. We'll take a deep breath and have at it.