This American Life negotiates 'first-look' deal with Warner Bros. Originally published in Current, Sept. 2, 2002 By Mike Janssen Public radio's This American Life might seem an odd match for Hollywood. You'd be hard-pressed to find an episode sexed up by starlets, aliens or fiery car crashes. But host and producer Ira Glass thinks his show and movies do share much in common. "We conceive of our stories as movies for radio," he says, noting the show's emphasis on classic storytelling elements such as character and narrative, as well as its signature musical scoring. Apparently, Tinseltown execs were already on Glass's wavelength: TAL has struck a lucrative deal with Warner Bros. that grants the studio "first-look" rights to its weekly output. Never heard of a first-look deal? Neither had Glass until shortly before he got one. It's a fancy way of claiming dibs, he explains. Warner Bros. now gets first crack at turning TAL's offbeat features into films. It's "a lovely and logical thing," Glass says. "We've got a lot of stories, and we need money," he says. "They've got a lot of money and need stories." The deal covers the next two years of TAL programs as well as the show's archive of more than 600 stories. Warner Bros. is already poring over past episodes to determine which stories might be film-worthy. Glass wouldn't talk dollar figures, but says the deal involves "a lot" of dough. It all goes to Glass and Chicago's WBEZ, who co-own TAL, but they both plan to funnel it all back into the program. Substantial profits may also go to freelancers, who provide about two-thirds of TAL's pieces. Until now, TAL hasn't asked contributors to surrender movie rights — the show simply didn't pay enough to justify that, Glass says. But if Warner Bros. expresses interest in a freelancer's story from the archive, the show will seek to buy a share of the rights. Henceforth, that will be part of the standard freelance deal for stories that suggest big-screen adaptations — realistically, about one story per show, Glass says. Freelancers who turn over rights, past or present, will get a small amount of money right off the bat but stand to make much, much more — along with Glass and WBEZ — if the studio follows through and makes their pieces into movies. Couldn't a freelancer do an end-run around TAL and strike a potentially sweeter deal directly with the studio? Yes, Glass says — but it's probably more sensible for the freelancer to exploit the show's readymade network of lawyers and industry contacts. "We will probably be able to do better for you," he says. Screenwriters tune in The show's entrée into Hollywood opened a few months ago, when a two-year-old show titled "The Fix Is In" aired in the Los Angeles market for the first time. The show focused on The Informant, a book about price-fixing at the food company Archer Daniels Midland and the man who helped the FBI uncover the scandal. A bidding war ignited among producers and studios to get the rights to the book, written by New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald. TAL, which simply piggybacked on Eichenwald's reporting, didn't feel it deserved a share of the money, but the deal drew the attention of Ann Blanchard, a William Morris agent who once helped Glass shop around a TAL-for-TV concept. Blanchard, it turned out, had been getting at least a pitch a week from television writers based on stories they heard on TAL. One show told the story of a woman who yearned to be a superhero since childhood and set out to master superhero-type skills, such as speaking Russian and shooting a bazooka. That story inspired pitches from several writers, all independently of each other. "Her whole feeling was, 'You guys are sitting on a gold mine, and you need the cash, so you should come out here'," Glass says. Glass and co-producer Julie Snyder met with a procession of producers and directors but formed the closest ties with Section Eight, a production company founded by director Steven Soderbergh and actor George Clooney under Warner Bros.' auspices. The company was trying to work up a film about the effect of DNA evidence on the criminal justice system — coincidentally a topic also under development at TAL. At Section Eight's urging, Glass and Snyder met with Warner Bros. higher-ups and hatched a deal. Specifics are pending, but Glass already has plans for the money. TAL may open a small satellite office in New York, where several of its producers recently relocated. TAL's production costs have risen sharply as it increasingly covers timely topics to match the interests of stations and listeners. Travel bills are up — Glass and his producers visited an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf to report on the war in Afghanistan and went to Israel for more than a week to report on the conflict there. "That show was like a money hemorrhage," he says. The Warner Bros. deal may be unique to public radio, but Glass encourages other shows to take stock of their creative capital. "There are a lot more interesting stories on public radio that are being exploited by people who have a lot more money than we do," he says.

"We've got a lot of stories, and we need money," says Glass. "They've got a lot of money and need stories." (Illustration: Current.)

	To Current's home page
	Earlier features: Profile of Glass and This American Life, 1997 and Glass's manifesto on radio storytelling.
	Outside link: This American Life website.

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