andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2021-03-23 12:00 pm

Interesting Links for 23-03-2021

jack: (Default)

Re: Ed Brubaker has "mixed feelings" about The Falcon And The Winter Soldier

[personal profile] jack 2021-03-23 07:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, shared universe development is a quagmire for this sort of thing, that's one reason why publishers DO want work-for-hire for a lot of work. I imagine it would be even worse for TV shows where each episode often has one writer, but also a show-runner, and maybe uncredited suggestions, etc, etc.

But I also think, there could be reasonable guidelines for that sort of thing, like so much credit for writing a story, so much credit for writing an original story that's adapted into a new medium or has a sequel, so much for creating a character who is a major feature in a following story, etc. I know George Martin's shared-universe wildcards stories operate on that model: GRRM is the main editor and cat-herds everyone, and the ownership is a shared corporation everyone gets shares in in proportion to their contribution. And it mostly works, albeit most of the people involved probably want it to work.

And admittedly, there can be endless wrangling over was this character "featured" or "co-staring", etc, etc, and the publisher can still claim, "oh no, this isn't a sequel, it's a totally unrelated story that's just similar". So I'm not sure it could ever work. But if there are some minimum of "you get at least this much", it would mean that at least you don't get NOTHING when you write one of the comic books that turns into a highest-grosssing box office hit of all time. And even if there's fights about how to credit individual things, there's an obvious standard to aim for, "I wrote it, I should be credited", not a fight later.