
The contest will be open for six weeks (February 16th to March 30th) and will have three winners.

So keep your eyes peeled, and we’ll keep you posted here! If the studio does decide to actually produce a movie, the movie will be “greenlit.” At that point it will probably have a rough timeline for production and release. But the result of optioning can take years, and the result may not always be a movie. Sometimes the option will expire (then the studio can re-option the rights or another studio can jump in) or the studio will decide not to move forward with the project.

“Optioning” doesn’t mean “buying rights to and producing a film right away to release in theaters ASAP!” When a studio options a film, it buys the exclusive right to start thinking about and developing a film-that means working on scripting, researching possible budgets, thinking about casting, etc. You might be eagerly awaiting a film release date … but you’re getting a bit ahead of things. If you’ve been sniffing around the internet (or following Charlie on Twitter or Facebook), you may have seen the news: Disney optioned the movie rights to The Paper Magician! You can get all the details about the producer assigned to the project, etc., here. Disney Options Rights to The Paper Magician: What Does That Mean?
