Quashing the Deal


Here’s a little story with the names changed and the circumstances slightly altered to protect the innocent.

Friend of mine was offered a pretty sweetheart deal on a movie option for something that he had been involved in, kind of a life-story thing. Now this was a real starry-eyed time, with people blowing kisses at him and saying the kinds of things that he dreamed of hearing all his life. He went and got himself an agent to do the negotiating with the Hollywood studio that had made the offer. Believe it or not, there wasn’t really that much back and forth. The way these things work in real life is that the deal basically has two parts: A little money up front that lets the studio think about it, and a lot more money if the movie is made. Definitions of “little” vary widely—anywhere from a dollar to six figures and beyond.

My friend’s offer was, alas, only four figures. And not very big ones.

Which kind of got under his skin, because, like the rest of us, he saw this as a dream come true and the ticket to the good life and yadda-yadda-yadda. Now you can point out that he wasn’t being realistic, and I guess you’d be right. I’d point out that how many of us finding ourselves in that situation would be realistic?

But okay, he tosses it around, discusses it with the real commander—his wife—and tells the agent to go ahead and cut the deal.

There’s a bit of a lag between the oral agreement and the contract—lawyer stuff, I guess—and when the contract gets there, the terms are off by roughly $100.

“What’s this?” says my friend.

“Those are the expenses to cover the FedEx and fax fees.”

“FedEx and fax? What FedEx and fax?”

The agent explained that some documents had changed hands and the charges for them had been deducted from the sum offered.

“I have to pay for that? After they took six months to send me the contract? And now they’re going to take another six months to pay me, and gyp me besides? No way.”

Now as a matter of fact, my friend happened to have been right—ordinarily those are considered regular costs of doing business, and the person on the other side of the deal pays them out of pocket. But there were special circumstances involved, and somewhere along the way, the agent had agreed to it, thinking it was a minor hurdle.

And it was. Except to my friend. From his perspective, he was being nickeled-and-dimed to death. He hadn’t gotten what he was worth in the first place, his agent was going to take a cut, the lawyer was taking a cut, and even the FedEx guy was getting more than he was.

Yeah, I know, the FedEx guy wasn’t. But no one—including his agent—could convince him of that. The deal died. You’ve never seen the movie about my friend, because it never even got past the discussion stage.




Negotiate and Win. Proven Strategies from the NYPD's Top Hostage Negotiator
Negotiate and Win: Proven Strategies from the NYPDs Top Hostage Negotiator
ISBN: 0071737774
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 180

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