Once relegated to B-movies, science fiction today is among Hollywood’s costliest and most lucrative genres.
With $192 million in ticket sales, the sci-fi action flick “Armageddon” is Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster this summer. And the top-grossing films of the past two years were both science fiction movies: 1997’s “Men in Black” and 1996’s “Independence Day.”
Hoping to cash in on the boom, a 2-month-old company called Created By has set up shop at Warner Hollywood Studios. The firm, headed by veteran talent agent Vince Gerardis, aims to take sci-fi literary properties and develop them into films, TV productions and video games.
Among other things, Created By has access to a treasure trove of vintage sci-fi stories that never were turned into films a potentially valuable commodity given Hollywood’s thirst for fresh material.
“We represent a lot of estates,” said Gerardis, formerly a talent agent at The Agency in Century City. “We just attached an A-list screenwriter to a novel written by Poul Anderson in 1962. A lot of times, the material was not effectively exploited.”
Gerardis was hired to run the Hollywood-based company by Ralph M. Vicinanza, a New York literary agent who represents some of the biggest names in science fiction, including Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, David Brin, Philip Jose Farmer, Joe Haldeman and Julian May.
Silverberg, whose “Book of Skulls” is being developed into a film at Universal Studios Inc., is confident the new venture will help expand opportunities for science fiction writers like himself.
“I’ve had agents in the past, but Gerardis has taken a much more active stance and is going out and suggesting films to producers, directors and screenwriters and getting them together,” said Silverberg, who estimates that he has at least 40 properties that can be developed into projects. “This has not been done in the past. He offers a complete package.”
Vicinanza said he started the company in part out of frustration in getting Hollywood to look at sci-fi literature.
“In the past, a New York literary agent would routinely get a manuscript and think it would be a wonderful movie and send it to a West Coast agent,” Vicinanza said. “If they didn’t like it, it would die a slow death. Sooner or later it would be off the agenda and that would be the end of it.”
Having Gerardis at ground zero in Hollywood should help prevent that kind of breakdown, Vicinanza said.
There is also a synergy that develops by having someone who is constantly in play with Hollywood’s movers and shakers. Gerardis had been discussing a project around town based on Gregory Benford’s novel “Cosm.” Jan De Bont, the director of “Twister” and “Speed,” became interested after learning about it and immediately had Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. option it from Created By.
“We had a deal done in two weeks,” Vicinanza said.
Vicinanza and Gerardis wouldn’t even project first-year revenues. Even so, David Brin, whose “The Postman” was turned into a film starring Kevin Costner, said the company offers the potential for science fiction purists to reach a whole new audience.
“In the past, Hollywood considered itself to be self-sufficient when it came to ideas in the science fiction field,” Brin said. “Some producer or director would brainstorm a concept and they give it to a screenwriter to shape it and get another to reshape that. In other genres, the best novels were considered an ideal source for good stories. Hollywood producers are now seeing that this old truth applies in science fiction as well, and this company (Created By) is primed for this.”
