“They’ve got a deal over at Fox”. You hear this phrases like this get tossed around all the time in Hollywood, but they never specify if it’s an overall deal or a first look deal. BUT WAIT. Are they not the same thing?
No they are not. In both types of deals, the studio pays for all the overhead costs for the production company and gets first dibs on any of the material that the production company develops. The main difference is that in a first-look deal, if the studio passes on a project brought to them by the production company, that production company is free to take the project elsewhere. Whereas in an overall deal, anything the producer develops must stay within the studio and can’t be taken elsewhere if the studio passes on it.
One thing to note, overall deals are usually only made in the television arena. Rarely do we see overall deals in the feature film side. So with this in mind, a production can have both an overall deal with a TV studio and a first look deal at a different studio. For example, Bad Robot has a first look feature film deal with Paramount Pictures and an overall television deal with Warner Bros TV Studios.
For more clarity, check out the terminology pages for “First Look Deal” and “Overall Deal“
CLICK HERE for a list of televisions most successful PODs and where they are based out of.
Also, here are some first look deals you should know:
Disney
Boxing Cat Films (Tim Allen)
POW! Entertainment (Stan Lee)
Mark Gordon Company
Warner Bros
Appian Way (Leonardo DiCaprio)
Carousel Productions (Steve Carell)
Green Hat Films (Todd Phillips)
MalPaso (Clint Eastwood)
Life’s Too Short (Chuck Lorre)
Lin Pictures (Dan Lin)
Ninjas Runnin’ Wild (Zac Efron)
Pearl Street (Ben Affleck, Matt Damon)
Revelations (Morgan Freeman)
22nd & Indiana (Bradley Cooper)
Universal
Aggregate (Jason Bateman)
Apatow Productions (Judd Apatow)
Blumouse Productions (Jason Blum)
ImageMovers (Robert Zemeckis)
Imagine Entertainment (Brian Grazer, Ron Howard)
K/O Paper Products (Alex Kurtzman, Robert Orci)
Legendary Pictures
One Race Films (Vin Diesel)
Wild Wild West Picture Show (Vince Vaughn)
Sony
Happy Madison (Adam Sandler)
Overbrook Entertainment (Will Smith)
Scott Rudin Productions
Smoke House (George Clooney)
Syco (Simon Cowell)
Trigger Street (Kevin Spacey)
Hey Eddie (Kevin James)
Laurence Mark Productions
Original Film (Neal Moritz)
20th Century Fox
Bad Hat Harry Productions (Bryan Singer)
Film Rites (Steve Zaillian)
Lightstorm (James Cameron)
Chernin Entertainment
Red Hour Films (Ben Stiller)
Scott Free (Ridley Scott)
Paramount
Plan B (Brad Pitt)
Bad Robot ( JJ Abrams)
Di Bonaventura Pictures
Platinum Dunes (Michael Bay)
Sikelia Productions (Martin Scorsese)
Four By Two Films (Sacha Baron Cohen)
Lionsgate
Tyler Perry Productions
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