Collectible Screenshots: Movie Scripts Worth a Fortune

In the world of the ephemeral, appearances can be deceiving. To the untrained eye, a pile of scruffy paper may actually be the building blocks of a Hollywood blockbuster like Pulp Fiction, a $ 950 document.

Movie scripts or movie scripts can prove to be very valuable and highly sought after in collector’s markets, while many others can be purchased at a relatively low price. Like collecting books, there are key factors to knowing if you have a treasure in your hands.

To learn more about movie scripts, we spoke to Dan Gregory, a Between the Covers book-selling expert in Merchantville, NJ. Between the Covers is one of the leading sellers of short-lived movies and scripts in North America.

Scripts appeal to all movie lovers, but also book lovers. “Book collectors who also love movies often find movie scripts and movie scripts interesting additions to their collections,” says Dan. Although the exact reason for collecting may differ from collector to collector or even script to script. “For some [the scripts] they are an artifact reminiscent of the experience of watching a classic movie. For others, they show the inner workings of the film-making process and the decisions that were made in the making of the film. Regardless of why you are attracted to them as a collector, movie scripts can be nice additions to your book collection or the starting point for a complete collection of movie material. “

Many aspects of script compilation and book compilation are similar, but there are a few key differences that one should be aware of when acquiring scripts.

First, the condition of a script is less of an issue for most collectors. “Condition, a factor that is often critical to book values, is less important for movie scripts because of their limited and fragile productions, and because all copies were intended for everyday use. The chances of finding a copy “best” of a script are much more limited than for a book “.

The value of a script, like that of a book or most other raw materials, depends on supply and demand. “A script for a classic movie loved by millions is always going to cost more than a script for a little-known movie seen only by historians and moviegoers.” In other words, a copy of the 1943 classic Heaven Can Wait directed by Ernst Lubitsch ($ 1200) about a would-be sinner (Don Ameche) not bad enough to get into hell, which was nominated for three Oscars. understandably, you will get a better rating. then the 1981 Tom Cruise and Sean Penn Taps movie ($ 200) where a group of military cadets sixteen their campus to prevent a developer from turning it into condominiums.

However, just because a movie is only remembered by fans doesn’t mean it’s not worth it because, as Dan puts it, “a lot of the people who collect scripts ARE movie buffs.” Sometimes any script by a popular director or actor will be worth a good sum even if the movie is not well known or popular. “This is particularly true due to the predictable availability of movie scripts, a collector hoping to buy a well-known book can usually find a copy if they have patience. Collectors hoping for a particular movie script will never have the opportunity to buy a copy. no matter how long they wait or how much they are willing to spend. ” A good example might be Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Affair (a court drama in which a woman is accused of poisoning her blind, elderly husband). It’s not generally considered one of Hitchcock’s best films, but it still comes at a hefty $ 6,000 price tag due to the director’s notoriety.

Signatures can also affect the value of scripts, but there is greater room for variation in the market for scripts. With a book, the only signatures that usually appear are that of the author and possibly that of the illustrator. However, with a movie, there are many more people visibly involved in the production (that is, the writer, the director, and the entire cast). “Right now we have the script [at Between the Covers] for the 1938 film Man About Town ($ 8,500), it is not a famous film; you’d have to be a true movie buff to have heard of it. But this copy of the script is signed by many of the actors, including Jack Benny, Dorothy Lamour, Betty Grable, and others. That collection of autographs from much-remembered Hollywood legends turns a not particularly desirable script into a highly desirable one. “

Sometimes you don’t even need the signature for the script to be valuable, “scripts sometimes have the name of the actor, screenwriter, or production person for whom the print or written copy was designed, and this can also add both to provenance and value. “This copy of The Highlander is priced at $ 750 because it was believed to belong to Sean Connery. And then sometimes it’s not who signed it or who it was for, but what was done with it that makes the script valuable. “Annotations from someone involved in production, like annotations on an uncorrected proof of a book, can also add value.”

With scripts, it is not always the first edition that will fetch the highest price. “The number [of copies] it can range from a few dozen to several dozen (of the same film but in various states), depending on the needs of the production. “These different states can be worth different amounts depending on how many of that specific state were produced, as with these two copies of” The Store Around the Corner. “The James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan film, remade in 1998 by Nora Ephron Like You have an email with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Depending on the version you have, it could go for $ 2000 to $ 2500. It all comes down to the number of copies that were produced, or more importantly, to the demand of the market. “Screen treatments or scripts that are not produced, or are in their early drafts, often exist in only a handful of copies, as only a few people need to read them. “You don’t always know how many copies of each script there are, but sometimes the studio’s lyrics or their scripts number, so you’ll know the exact number produced, as with Marlon Brando and Viva Zapata’s Personal Police! (For a whopping $ 12,500), regardless of whether it is numbered or not, it has a very rare item with a hyphen.

With movie scripts, as with books, it is not always necessary to spend a lot to get something interesting, but if you are willing to spend a lot of money, the sky is the limit of what you can find.

At the lower end of the scale, you can buy a Universal Pictures Turkey copy of a Howard the Duck movie for $ 75 or George Romero’s zombie “classic” Night of the Living Dead for around $ 30.

If you turn it up a bit more, you can have the cult classics Gremlins I and II for $ 400, Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster’s psychological thriller Silence of the Lambs for $ 150, or possibly the best Star Trek movie out there. have done Star Trek. II: The Wrath of Khan for $ 600.

And if you’re willing to throw in a little more money, you can get your hands on a piece of history: Oliver Stone’s JFK ($ 1,250), maybe Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (priced at $ 2001, of course. ) or Francis Ford. Coppola’s Godfather ($ 12,500)

Of course, we had to ask Mr. Gregory what was the most valuable script he had ever sold.
He said it was Gone with the Wind, which sold for $ 9,500.