Scam Alert! Film Adaptation Proposal

 


This would have been a perfect start to a day...if this were true.

I received this email today and, I have to admit, it got me excited...for a while. What author wouldn't be, right? You get an email from someone claiming to be from a film/television production company and proposing to turn your book into a film or television series. Wow! Hollywood, here I come!

As I read through the email, red flags started to wave. The first paragraph says it's from Rhiley Roads and yet, the email address is from Adam Mckay, the CEO of Hyperobject Industry. Furthermore, the email address uses a gmail extension. Curious. Shouldn't an official email come from a corporate email address?

I checked out Hyperobject Industries. It's a legit company run by Adam McKay and they've produced several movies and television series on Netflix. This email, however, uses the words "Hyperobject Industry" instead of "Hyperobject Industries." When you're representing a company, you can't afford to make mistakes like that.

I don't know how these companies work. Do they really read someone's book and just contact them offering to convert the book into a movie?

They also want to pitch the book at a Producer's Pitch Event in January 2024. I checked for the event and found a Hollywood Pitch Festival scheduled for December 2023. I don't know if this is the same or is it a different event.

The final red flag is that they want ME to make the synopsis, loglines, film treatment, and screenplay. That's not something an ordinary author would know how to make. Therefore, they propose to hire professional screen writers to do it for me. Guess who pays for those? Yup, me!

If they really wanted to make a film adaptation of my book, they would contact me properly and they would propose to pay me, not me pay them.

Still, getting a legit offer would be nice. I just have to remember to be realistic and wary of scam artists like this one. (",)

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