Good morning, Hank, it's Tuesday.

So I have some important news about the movie adaptation of my book Turtles All The Way Down, but first for context, I thought I would explain to you the practical parts of how a book becomes a movie and the financial implications for an author.

So first, there is a book and in the case of Turtles, the day after the book came out, a movie studio made an offer to option that book into a movie which means they have the option to develop it into a film for, I don't know, say 24 months. And most books that get optioned do not become movies, like my book An Abundance of Katherines was optioned and never became a movie, Paper Towns was optioned three times before it became a movie. But from an author's perspective, it's still nice because, you know, you get a little bit of money and you don't have to do any extra work for it, which is kind of the American Dream. 

So right, now the studio has the right to develop your work into a movie and they hire screenwriters who write a screenplay and generally that's where things break down. The script isn't good enough or they can't attract the right director or they hire the author to write the script and it turns out the author is a terrible screenwriter or whatever. But then, sometimes, they get a good director and then it falls apart because they can't settle on a cast or a budget or whatever, and occasionally, everything comes together. They hire a director, they settle on a cast, they start hiring crew, they're 12 days away from shooting when a movie executive decides, "Mhm, I think I'm going to pull this movie because I don't want to make it because I feel like one of the cast members just looks kind of weird. Like, kind of unsettling." That's literally what he told me.

And if any of that happens, the only money the author gets is the option money. Like if The Fault in Our Stars had not turned into a movie, I think I would have gotten paid $60,000 which is a lot of money to be clear, but it's not like Hollywood fantasy money. So that's how the vast majority of these deals work: You try to make a movie, you work really hard, it just for whatever reason doesn't happen, but then occasionally, of course, it does happen. You get the right script and the right director and the right cast and crew and awesome movie executives, who do exist by the way, and they make a movie. And that, that moment when they commence principal photography—that is the phrase they use—is the moment when authors get paid. The option is "exercised" and you get paid generally several times the amount of that option, and that for authors financially is usually it. Like, unless you're wildly famous, you don't get a cut of the box office, so your last paycheck from the movie comes with the commencement of principal photography.

In that sense from an author's perspective, it doesn't really matter if the movie comes out because, you know, you get paid the same. Except of course, it does matter. It matters a great deal. When I started the movie journey with Turtles All the Way Down, I had no idea how much I would love the script, which was written by the lovely people who wrote Love, Simon. I had no idea how much I would care about the cast and the crew and our awesome director Hannah Marks, how much work they would put into it and we would put into it together. I had no idea how much I would end up loving, loving the movie, which I just just think is truly, truly brilliant. It's about socioeconomic class and friendship and free will and, of course, it's also about mental illness and it manages to be raw and honest without ever feeling sensationalized.

Now, I don't think it would be accurate to say I have no financial incentive in the movie's success because a successful movie sells a lot of books, and I do make money from book sales, right? It does vary a lot based on how people respond to the movie and also like whether they know it's an adaptation of a book, like you know the movie Die Hard? That's an adaptation of a book and it hasn't like become an American classic or anything. It's not like people read that book every Christmas. And I've been on both sides of that equation, like, the Looking for Alaska show was brilliant but it didn't sell a lot of books, The Fault in Our Stars movie sold a ton of books. But anyway, even after you've cleared all the other hurdles and the movie is made, there is still one more hurdle: Increasingly, movie studios just don't release movies, even movies that they've already made and paid for. This is a tax strategy as I understand it. If they believe the movie will lose more money than just not releasing it and calling it a total loss, then they'll take that tax write-off instead of releasing the movie.

Now I'm biased obviously, but I think Turtles All the Way Down is a great movie. It scored really well with test audiences, all that stuff, but I am conscious of the fact that it doesn't have like superheroes and it isn't, like, the seventh sequel in a popular franchise. I mean it's a movie about free will and mental illness called Turtles All the Way Down, so, you know, I worried about that. Until recently that is when I got a call saying that the Turtles All the Way Down movie is coming out later this year on Max. You'll get to see it and I'm so excited for you to see it, not for financial reasons, but because it is a beautiful, beautiful movie. I know some of y'all wanted like a big theatrical release, but in 2024 for this kind of movie, this is a massive win and it's the right way to share the movie.

One thing I don't know about yet is international distribution, but it will be in lots of places around the world, and I'm just so happy and relieved and excited for this to actually happen. And also since Hollywood isn't exactly beating down the door for the rights to The Anthropocene Reviewed or my forthcoming book about tuberculosis, this may be the last time I get to experience hundreds of people coming together, navigating all those obstacles, and finding a way to make something wonderful together, and then get to share it with an audience. So yeah, later this year. Streaming on Max. What a joy, what a relief.

Hank, I'll see you on Friday.