What Are The Specifics On "Turnaround?"

[Pencey]

I understand this to mean a project was dropped by a prodco or studio and is fair game to anyone else who wants to pick it up. Is this correct?

What about the rights to the script? Does another company have to pay for those rights, take over the contract with the original writer, etc? How does this work?

[Hugh Jardon]

If a studio agrees to put your script in turnaround,
any interested buyer has to negotiate with the
studio (who owns the rights) not you.

If you did any rewrites after the original studio
purchased your script, you were essentially writing
under a "work-for-hire" and the original studio
owns the rewritten material.

In other words, even if a second studio buys the
script in turnaround, they're only buying the rights
to the draft you originally sold. Any rewrites you did
(and any resulting new characters, etc...) must be
negotiated separately.

[warmgoodness]

Having a project in turnaround myself --

When a studio puts a project in turnaround, it gives the producers the opportunity to set the script up elsewhere. This 'new' buyer will generally have to pay the original studio its costs to date on the project.

Should a project in turnaround fail to be set up elsewhere, the original writer can buy the property back (after five years) from the studio for the original purchase price.

[Gilliatt]

I thought, that as a constant, the rights to unproduced material revert back to the writer after five years anyhow.

Or is that simply a contractual thing?

[warmgoodness]

With an expired option, rights "revert". With a sale, you sold the rights, you have to buy them back. At least you're being given a 'discount' and only required to repay the original purchase price (as opposed to acquiring the project in turnaround during which time you would have to pay all costs on the project to-date). Generall the Guild can assist you with the reacquisition process as your project has to meet a set of specific criteria to be eligible and the five year aspect is only one of them. The wga has an area on their website regarding the reacquisition of scripts. Not sure if this available on the public site or only the 'for members' site, but it may answer your questions.