Written off the page: Why Bollywood's screenwriters are struggling to earn a living

The young man, feeling betrayed by these young boys he has grown up with and with whom he has just made a film on a shoestring budget, wants to remind them that it is essentially because of the writer that everyone on a film set has a job. But like many others in Malegaon, the friends don’t seem to get his creative sensibilities, and he soon leaves for Mumbai to chase his dreams, only to return penniless a few years later.

The Reema Kagti-directed film, which released in theatres this February, is an ode to parodies of Bollywood blockbusters of the 1970s and 80s that sustained several careers in the small Maharashtrian town for years. It also pays tribute to the 1975 action epic Sholay and its writers, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, an inspiration for many who landed in Mumbai over the years, chasing a career in film writing.

In the 70s, Salim-Javed (as their name appeared in movie credits) thrived in and dominated Hindi cinema to the extent where they could command rates higher than many leading stars. However, unlike that era, screenwriting, often considered the foundation of a good film or show, is hardly bringing returns or rewards for those committed to the craft in the Hindi film and over-the-top (OTT) industry today.

Writer Darab Farooqui, who wrote a long Instagram post on screenwriters this February, told Mint that writers receive 10% of their remuneration upon signing a contract (for a film or show) and must then write the entire script, which, if approved, garners an additional 10-20%. The rest will be paid only if the project is approved and when the actor signs on.

“Actors today don’t accept a script unless it’s fully bound, which means you need everything from the story and screenplay to the dialogues to be in place. This is the amount of work that has to be put in before an actor even decides to read the script. Who pays for all this?" Farooqui questioned.

No writer can make it with just writing two movies per year, he emphasised.

Farooqui, who has worked on films such as Ae Watan Mere Watan and Dedh Ishqiya, added that writers are thus pushed into a situation where they have to write at least five to six movies a year in order to sustain themselves, and simply do not have the liberty to work hard on one project at a time. “And in case the films don’t release, you’re doomed," he was quick to add.

Echoing Farooqui, Aarsh Vora, writer of Netflix original Mismatched and films such as Article 370, said, “As a writer, you can definitely never work on one project at a time. You have to put your eggs into different baskets, otherwise it just isn’t financially feasible because there is no monthly income. You have to pitch multiple things in order to pay the bills."

In the best-case scenario, top writers receive between ₹2-3 crore for a film whose lead star, even if he’s a mid-tier name, takes home between ₹25-40 crore. The situation is bad for established names, for whom it is common to take up other jobs in order to cover living expenses in Mumbai, and worse for new entrants who are made to wait for months and sometimes years to hear from producers and OTT platforms, which are increasingly taking longer to commission projects.

Further, with the corporate culture now fully entrenched in the Mumbai film and OTT industry, writers say the mandate is not to come up with fresh stories but to work on formulas that have already worked. The goal is to appeal to MBA graduates who have taken top roles at production houses and streaming platforms.

But unlike consumer goods and products that these executives have sold so far, storytelling is a creative medium and cannot follow templates curated on the basis of surveys, reports and number crunching.

As things stand today, complete uncertainty as to what will work at the box office, coupled with a slowdown on OTT commissioning, has left screenwriters staring at a bleak future.

Absence of development fee

The dip in OTT commissioning has impacted all the stakeholders in the filmmaking ecosystem, especially writers, who are unlikely to get paid or do not know if they will receive compensation for much of the journey of putting together a show or movie.

“Earlier, the usual deal was that projects went through a phase of development or writing, after which some would get made and subsequently released. Now, that whole phase of development isn’t happening," said Shoaib Nazeer, dialogue writer for Superboys of Malegaon. “So, if a platform or production house finds that your already-developed script is good enough to go on the floors, it goes into production, else it’s a dead end and nobody wants to take the risk of pushing a script that may not be working immediately."

At least eight out of 10 scripts do not get made for reasons as varied as an actor saying no, the script not being relevant by the time it is ready or not being conducive to the political environment, or the whole project appearing too expensive.

Earlier, Nazeer said, writers were paid a development fee, which these days doesn’t start coming in until the final screenplay is ready, which is much later in the process and extremely unfair to the writers, who deserve better payment in tranches.

The work to put a story together starts at least a year before it comes to executives or any stakeholders, explained comic writer Sumukhi Suresh, who has written for a series called Pushpavalli on Prime Video besides penning the dialogue for Netflix original CTRL, starring Ananya Panday.

“So, the process for a writer and creator in terms of timeline is too long. While we love the time a story takes (to come together), to wait for a movie or show to release and then get paid, that doesn’t align with the time spent writing. It makes the process frustrating. Plus, accounts for feedback that comes from everywhere. Even if you juggle multiple projects, the cash flow is irregular," said Suresh.

A report by Ormax and Tulsea, a media and content management company that represents writers, directors, actors, producers, and production companies, underlines how unhappy writers are.

Based on a survey of 217 film and series writers in India, the report stated that though a sizeable section (65%) of writers believe that pay levels have improved in recent years, 63% still believe they are not being paid fairly. Timeliness of payments is also a significant concern, impacting 47% of writers directly. A dominant majority of writers (91%) believe that a hybrid pay model, comprising a mix of fixed pay and incentive or bonus, will motivate them to do better work and lead to higher ownership. However, only 31% have ever been offered a contract of this nature so far.

Incompetent gatekeepers

Further, the Ormax Tulsea report states that 53% of writers are dissatisfied with the credit they receive for their work. The dissatisfaction with credit in marketing and promotions is even higher, touching 65-80% of different types of marketing activities.

Writers’ perception of the quality of feedback received on their work varies according to the provider of the feedback. They are more satisfied with the quality of feedback provided by directors and showrunners, but less satisfied with feedback from production houses, OTT platforms, and TV channels.

In the writers’ opinion, there is a marked difference in the importance scripts carry over stars in the theatrical and OTT industries. 90% of writers believe the theatrical business values stars over scripts, while the view is more balanced for the OTT industry, though still tilted away from scripts and towards stars.

All the writers Mint spoke to also lament the fact that several production houses either have no official contact to pitch scripts to or are inundated with ill-trained newbies who have no script sense. “Their development teams consist of a bunch of 20-year-olds who can’t tell one script from another and are in no way fit to do the job. How can this be your first line of defence?" said a new writer, requesting anonymity.

The person added that he and his writing partner could never get through to the chief executive officer of at least two major content studios and only heard back from the junior staff. One of the two mentioned that the CEO had gone on vacation and would read the script when approved by the teams reporting to him. The writers, however, never heard back and don’t know if their script ever reached the top executive.

“The market has changed because the big players aren’t making a lot. Among many others, there is a confusion on what to make. Producers are averse to fresh ideas. Now, with an Adolescence (a Netflix show) working, I’m sure there will be a hunt for dark investigative dramas," Vora emphasised, explaining the bent towards established tropes.

Studio view

Commenting on the screenwriters’ angst, a senior executive at a content studio said that while the raw deal they get is well recognised, there isn’t enough box office or critical success today to back even some of the older writing names.

“Because of the clutter of content that gets made and released, and the fragmented nature of the market, no writer can claim the kind of clout that, say, Salim and Javed did, with their string of successes of similar films in the 1970s," the person pointed out. “They were known for a certain kind of popular cinema, mainly action entertainers, that audiences regularly flocked to theatres for."

While there is no denying writers deserve better pay, the executive added that for them to be taken more seriously, their films and shows would have to either break box office records or gain unprecedented critical acclaim.

That of course, is a larger cycle born out of films becoming more upscale, elite multiplex experiences, alienating a wide section of society with even the biggest OTT shows reaching only niche, targeted segments.

Even if some fortunate writers manage to navigate the rigmarole to land a film or show that does make it to audience screens, in the words of one writer cited earlier, there are plenty of ‘credit whores’ waiting to take over. It is extremely common, the person said, for someone from the production house or the director himself to share writing credit for little to no contribution, or a bigger, established writing name to be added to the list to improve the crew profile.

“Contracts usually have clauses mentioning that the final approval on how and where credit appears lies in the hands of the producer. A writer’s name on a film poster is extremely rare, as is having it included in promotional material on social media. That is a battle worth fighting because everyone here is employed because you wrote a story," Vora said.