Summer Plans

The Christmas of 2021 was one to celebrate. It was the first time in a long while that we had our own tree, next to our own window, with our own ornaments, in our own home. We did everything we could to bring the Christmas spirit. We baked, wrapped presents, sang carols, and picked a Christmas read aloud. Since we started homeschooling we have tried to always have a book that we’re reading as a family. I decided on a childhood favorite of mine, “The Paper Bag Christmas.” My mother loves Christmas novels and is always reading a new one. She introduced this book to me as a teen and I was now going to introduce it to my children.

All through that holiday season, we read together. The story was marvelous, just like I remembered. The week before Christmas, we read the final chapter together. As we finished, with tears in our eyes, Ben turned to me and said, “If this hasn’t been made into a movie, it needs to be.”

For a lot of avid readers, after finishing a book they might think, “This would be so great as a movie!” And then they move on with life. For movie makers, they say the same thing… then they try to make magic happen.

The next day Ben sent an email to Kevin Milne asking if he had ever thought about making “The Paper Bag Christmas” into a movie. Before going any further, let me preface this by saying that when you reach out to an author (or celebrity, or really any other well respected/well known person), it’s not likely that a response is going to happen any time soon. We knew it was a long shot that we’d get a response- ever. To our surprise, though, Mr. Milne responded the very next day. He was so kind, and he and Ben hit it off immediately. Within two weeks, Ben had met with him, discussed creative visions, fixed terms, and signed the agreement.

Side note- let’s quickly go over how film rights work. When you use someone else’s creative work, you need to obtain their permission first- which almost always means paying for the rights to use the work, which can be expensive. On top of that, it’s really, really hard to make a movie. There are many steps and the process can fall apart at any point along the way. For most people, it’s not financially feasible to buy the rights outright, since they don’t have any guarantee that they’ll even be able to get the movie made.

Enter the option agreement. Specifically for film/television rights, the most common way to get permission to pursue making the movie is through the option agreement. With an option, you don’t actually buy the rights unless the movie is made. Instead, you pay a small percentage of the fee for the exclusive rights to buy the rights IF the movie gets made within a certain period of time. If it doesn’t get made in that time, the contract expires and the author can option the rights to someone else.

Back to the story- Mr. Milne loved Ben’s vision, gave his blessing, and, with the option in place and signed, Ben started writing the screenplay. In fact… I think Ben had most of the first draft written by the time the ink had dried on the paperwork.

By the end of February, and with feedback from Mr. Milne, Ben had gone through several revisions, hired a company out of LA to give professional feedback on the script, and done more revisions. Then he got some actor friends together (online, because meeting in person in large groups was still frowned on), and did something called a “table read,” where the script is read as if it were being acted out, so that the author(s) can hear how things sound in real life, rather than just in their heads. After the table read, more revisions were made. With a solid script in place, it was time to start approaching the people who could help get the movie made.

In film, like almost anywhere else, business depends on relationships. When trying to decide who the best person would be to partner with on this journey, Ben’s first thought was a director/producer that he had met while auditioning for another project, and with whom he had since become good friends. Ben called him up, met for hot chocolate at a local restaurant, and shared the premise of the story. Funnily enough, it turns out, this was the second time that he had been approached to make that same book into a movie!

Fifteen or so years earlier, someone else had optioned the film rights for the book, gone through the same process Ben had, and approached this director with the same idea. For one reason or another, it wasn’t the right time for him to do so, and he had declined. The man who had optioned the rights then took it elsewhere, and eventually it was presented to Hallmark. That year, Hallmark had the budget for a certain number of movies. For their final movie of the year, they were deciding between “The Paper Bag Christmas” and “12 Dogs of Christmas.” They went with the dogs and “The Paper Bag Christmas” was never made.

Now a decade and a half later, Ben’s director friend decided that the timing was right to test the waters on it, so he sent the script to his company’s own internal review department to see what kind of feedback it would get. The response was incredible. Afterwards, he told Ben the feedback was one of the best he’d ever seen on a script in his entire time as a producer.

Things were progressing quickly enough that we thought we might be able to go from signing the option agreement to filming the movie all in 2022, but turns out, it takes time to get papers drafted and signed, work out kinks in the script, get other investors and key people on board, and many other steps I haven’t mentioned. Even still, at the beginning of 2023, we had a signed agreement with a production company, agreeing to work together with Ben to produce the film.

How did Ben go from being an actor to being a screenwriter and producer? Well, during the pandemic months, while we were stuck at home basically jobless, Ben’s job became that of a student. He studied everything he could, learning through online tutorials, Youtube, and books how to work sound equipment, edit film, develop accents, write and sell scripts, and more. Anything that he could do to make good use of “dead time,” he did. Those months of studying gave Ben the skills he needed to jump on this idea. He made sure to include a role for himself in this script. Here’s hoping that by creating our own content, it will lead to a break through with the acting as well.

If all goes as planned with “The Paper Bag Christmas”, our lives will be on a sudden, new adventure. We are hoping and praying for this amazing blessing for our family, and the blessing it will be to so many others. Time is short to get the film going if we’re going to release the film this Christmas season. That being said… we are still pitching the film to investors. Once we get the investors, things can happen quickly… or maybe we’ll have a busy 2024. So… I don’t know what we’re doing this summer. Here’s hoping we’re filming.