John le Carre: Ridiculous Amounts
on Sunday, December 13, 2020John le Carre Money Quote saying movie rights for stories sold to studios sometimes don’t get made and are then hidden away forever. John le Carre said:
“I made a series of wrong decisions about moderately recent books, and I’ve sold the rights to studios for ridiculous amounts of money and the films have never been made. That’s the saddest thing of all, because they’re locked up and no-one else can make them” — John le Carre
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In this quote, John le Carre seems regretful about some of the choices he made in selling film rights to his works. By saying he made “a series of wrong decisions” and sold the rights to studios for “ridiculous amounts of money” but the films were “never made”, le Carre implies he prioritized large financial payouts over ensuring his stories would actually reach audiences in cinematic form.
His comment that the unproduced works are now “locked up” conveys le Carre’s frustration that his creative works cannot be adapted by other directors hoping to bring them to the screen. Overall, the quote portrays le Carre’s perspective that he should have handled film rights negotiations more judiciously to balance compensation with facilitating realization of the adaptations, rather than allow works to languish unfinished due to business factors alone.
Birthday: October 19, 1931 – Death: 12 December 2020