In this interview segment, entertainment attorney Ben Feldman explains the fundamental differences between his legal work in film versus theatre. He notes that film projects have a short, defined pre‑production and production window (typically up to 12 weeks) and that all rights are usually transferred in a single package to one buyer or a small set of distributors (e.g., Netflix, Sony Pictures Classics). By contrast, a theatrical production can span three years and generates multiple distinct “lives” – the initial Broadway run, stock and amateur productions, revivals, touring versions, foreign productions, and even film adaptations. Each of these lives involves separate licensing agreements, revenue streams, and sometimes different producers or rights holders. Feldman also hints at the growing complexity when movies expand into other media such as video games, adding further layers of rights negotiation.
And let's talk a little bit more about film, because you, you work in the film world too. How would you differentiate what you do in film versus what you do in theater?
With film, there's a definite period of pre-production and production, which is, uh, at the most 12 weeks. And theater is like a 3-year thing, so there's that big difference. Film is simpler because all the rights go to one place, and then you've got this one, literally like a can, and you give the can to people you sell it to, whether it's Netflix or whether it's, you know, someone in France or, you know, Sony Pictures Classics. You just give it to one person, maybe three people who knows. You give it— usually you give it to one sales agent and then one U.S. distributor, and that's it. Maybe there's a remake or a sequel, but we, we all know that that's a very specific thing. Theater is very different. I mean, you're talking about an initial production with a certain set of designers and a certain orchestrator and a certain producer, and that's just chapter one. I mean, there's a stock and amateur life, which is a second life when it's licensed around. There's a revival life, there's a film life, there's a touring life, which is usually the same team as the Broadway production. And then there's also a foreign life, and by foreign, that could mean the same production license to English language territories, or it could mean licenses where they do a completely different production, right? And some of these, the Broadway producer takes a part of, and some of them they don't. Like, it's— and then there's subsidiary interest from the author where the initial investors are paid from the author from the future of the show. A show takes so many different forms, whereas in a movie it's all one, one form.
And are you finding it a little more complicated even now with movies when they start to— now they want to make a video game of the movie, or now they want to turn that movie more complicated?
It is more complicated, but then it gets simpler because you just— like, I just sold something at Sundance. We were talking about this, um, I didn't sell it, like, the whole team did. I'm just the lawyer, but, um, And it's one agreement because the buyer basically needs all rights.
