Option now, pay later

From the LA Times:

Author Jonathan Lethem, who has sold film options for several novels but has never seen one turned into a movie, has come up with a new twist: He's offering a film option for his newest novel, "You Don't Love Me Yet," to a filmmaker who agrees to pay Lethem 2% of the production budget when the film finds a distributor.
Ordinarily, authors sell the film options to their books before production begins

.Read the whole article here.