Sequels

[aus screenwriter]

Hello.
For a sequel to a movie do u have to gets right to do the script first or can u do a script then give it to the producer who made the movie in which you are doing the sequel for.

Please help.

[RatWriter]

Write the script. The script is original and yours.

A sequel implies the same characters by name and that requires permission.

If they don't want it as a sequel, it can still be produced.

Die Hard II didn't have to be "Officer John McCain". If they didn't want it, it could have been produced as "Trouble on the Tarmac" with a different character name.

[wcmartell]

I think you can search the threads and find a longer version of this answer:

You can't write a sequel to a film. You can't use the characters from another film in your script.

But Rat's advice is good: You can write an original script with original characters that may lend itself to being a sequel. DIE HARD 2 was based on a novel by Walter Wanger called 58 MINUTES that had nothing to do with the Rod Thorp novel THE DETECTIVE (which DIE HARD is a sequel to - based on Thorp's novel NOTHING LASTS FOREVER). DIE HARD 3 was based on a spec script called SIMON SAYS which I think was about a bomb squad guy... but they changed it to John McClain. DIE HARD 4 will not start as a DIE HARD script, but as a novel or original screenplay - we've had a bunch of possibilities in the past few years, notably TEARS OF THE SUN - another riff on MOST DANGEROUS GAME.

So just write an original script with original characters.

- Bill

[KinTar]

He's right. Writing a sequel is useless. Even if the producer of the movie series, or whoever you owned the rights, read the script ... well, if he doesn't like it, you're dead in the water.

I was in a screenwriting class once where a guy wanted to write a sequel to Men at Work.

[Trebster]

Ah, Die Hard4... hehe.. As you may or may not know, I am a fore-runner
for writing duties for the next installment of the Die Hard Franchise, whether
Fox care to admit it or not..

I wrote an original spec 3 years ago, which I intended from the start to be a Die Hard movie. It has been a long, hard slog and I am by no means there yet even though the script is now with Bruce Willis and Fox, with other named parties closing in with extreme interest and saying I have the deal, just that nothing is signed.

Being a nobody AND writing a sequel CAN be done. Ask politely, creep quietly, lie, be a crazy person, but what works for one, won't necessarly work for another. As mentioned, write a script that an already existing franchise COULD BE BASED ON, not a script where you write existing characters - then you haven't wasted time if it doesn't come off, but could market it as a separate piece.

Hope I'm making sense and haven't bored the board with my ramblings.

Treb