Go Into The Story Interview (Part 2): Jeff Portnoy

An extensive conversation with the Bellevue Productions literary manager.

“Rarely do I encourage a writer to write a big, four-quadrant studio tentpole unless it’s based on MAJOR IP because if it’s not, it’s just a sample.”

Jeff Portnoy is a literary manager at Bellevue Productions. Prior to joining Bellevue, Jeff worked at Creative Artists Agency, The Gotham Group, Resolution talent agency and Heretic Literary Management.

I met Jeff a year or so ago at a Black List Live! event in Los Angeles and we had a good discussion about the business. I made a mental note to get back to him for an interview. Then Amber Alexander, one of the 2018 Black List Feature Writers Lab participants, recently landed a writing gig adapting the horror novel “Snowblind” for Zoic Studios. When she emailed me to share the good news, she connected me with Jeff who is her manager.

Jeff and I ended up having about a 45-minute conversation covering a lot of territory which promises to be both interesting and helpful reading for Go Into The Story readers.

Today in Part 2 of a 5 part series, Jeff gives his take on Hollywood’s current obsession with nostalgia and the challenge of trying to set up original stories in this business climate.

Scott: Would you say that most of your clients have both managers and agents?

Jeff: Every manager’s client base is going to be different. I would say around two‑thirds of my clients have agents. A third might not. Some of them don’t have agents yet because they’re new clients. We don’t have anything to bring to an agent yet.

Scott: Having the manager so intimately involved with the writers in terms of writing treatments and outlines, almost like a creative partner, is that pretty wide‑ranging?

Jeff: Yes, as I mentioned before, there are different breeds of managers. There are a lot of managers who formerly worked as agents and they aren’t operating a whole lot different than they were before. There’s not a whole lot of creative input into the material but they know everyone and can sell the hell out of a script.

Then there are managers who develop heavily with their clients. By the way, within my own client base, there are some clients who I develop with more and some who I develop with less. I just adapt to their needs and wants. Typically, the newer the writer, the more development help they need. As the writer’s careers grows and as their craft improves, the less help they need or at least the less help they need from their manager. At a certain point, the writer will be off developing with producers or studio execs and the manager’s role in development will begin to diminish as the writer’s career takes off. My job is to help their career take off and sometimes that requires development help. The goal is to get them to a point where they’re off working with producers and studios and no longer need me as much, if at all.

The great thing about a writing team is that writers can bounce ideas off each other. There is a synergy there that you don’t get when you’re a solo writer, writing alone, in a vacuum. So, for solo writers, a creative manager like myself can act as a surrogate of sorts. The writer can bounce ideas off me in real time and get a quick response, whether it be ideas for their next script or ideas within a scene in their script and it creates the same type of symbiosis generated within a writing team except I never type nor do I take any kind of credit but I give a similar type of feedback and the relationship dynamic is similar.

Scott: I’d like to ask some industry questions. For decades in terms of movie and TV development, Hollywood has operated with a business principle: similar but different. Nowadays, we’re awash in nostalgia with all the remakes and reboots, old TV series and movies come back to life. It feels like the studios and networks are even more inclined toward similar, rather than different. Does that seem like a fair assessment?

Jeff: Yeah. The culture of remakes on the feature side of the business has been around for a while now. Actually, in some ways, I think it’s slowing down. TV just got started a couple of years ago. It hasn’t reached its apex yet. It’s still got ways to go. TV right now has got the remake fever.

In the feature world, the fever is starting to go away a little bit. It can’t last forever because you run out of titles to remake. People do want original stuff. No one wants just a rehash of older stuff.

That all being said, it’s not a great thing. It’s basically a sign that there’s a lot of risk aversion. When they remake something, they’re just try to spend less on marketing. The odds are, because there’s a built‑in audience or brand pre-awareness, it will probably do a little bit better than if it was original. It’s just acute risk aversion, really. It’s sad.

They’re spending their money. It’s not my money. It’s not our money. If it was your money, you might say, if you had a choice between a remake and something original and they were both just as a good, you might say, “well, it’s a little surer of a bet with a remake because some people that are older, in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s that were growing up when that original movie was coming out, they might pop in to see it, to take their kids to see it. There’s some nostalgia there.”

It is what it is. It’s a bottom line thing. If it were our money, we might do the same. From a creative standpoint, however, it’s kind of sad.

Scott: Speaking of risk aversion, how hard is it to set up original material nowadays?

Jeff: Setting up original materials is hard. It also depends on what the size and scope of the project is. I tell my clients that if it’s anything over a certain budget in the, I don’t know, 50, 60 million and above range, major studios and financiers will not consider it unless it’s based on… not just IP, whether it be a book or an article or something… It has to be very well-known, best‑selling IP.

It can’t just be any video game or any book or a remake of an already produced film. It has to be a hit book/game/film. Otherwise, don’t even attempt it. I don’t have my clients writing anything that’s 50/60 million or higher unless it’s based on major IP.

Conversely, if the budget is too low, it’s harder to raise money and turn a profit. If the budget is too low, then the likelihood of attaching name talent is low and, therefore, the film is not likely to make any money. So I encourage my clients to write screenplays that can be producing in the $15–40 million range, which is the sweet spot, and I do have some clients who write in the indie space so films in the sub $10 and sub $5M space, but rarely do I encourage a writer to write a big, four-quadrant studio tentpole unless it’s based on MAJOR IP because if it’s not, it’s just a sample. Moreover, the studios already have a ton of IP and don’t really need more. They are looking for writers to adapt the IP they already own.

If it’s a remake of something or if it’s got IP in it, then I might say the sky is the limit. It has to be a best‑selling brand name. If it’s a historical character, it’s got to be Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. It’s got to be something everyone knows. It can’t be some obscure historical figure that no one’s ever heard of. It’s got to be something that everyone knows. Even then, it’s probably an uphill battle.

Tomorrow in Part 3, Jeff discusses how critically important it is for writers to work with the strongest story concepts when writing a spec script.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Twitter: @Jeff_Portnoy.

For nearly 200 Go Into The Story interviews with screenwriters, filmmakers, and Hollywood insiders, go here.