Time & Perspective Quote by Richard Curtis

Curtis is voicing the quiet part of contemporary entertainment: in a franchise economy, authorship is a service industry, not a sovereign state. The bluntness is the point. By saying he has "no problem" selling books to media franchises, he frames adaptation not as cultural translation but as routine asset conversion. The phrase "we do it all the time" isn’t just confidence; it’s a normalization tactic, a way of laundering a hard power relationship into business-as-usual.

The real voltage sits in "writer for hire". It’s a demotion disguised as a job description, shifting the writer from originator to contractor. "Must understand" reads like a warning: consent is less important than compliance with an industrial logic. Even the inclusive "he/she" feels less like sensitivity than like standard-issue HR language for a process that is anything but personal. This is about managing expectations, preemptively defusing the romantic myth that the author is the final authority over their work.

Context matters: Curtis comes out of a screen culture where rewrites are constant, notes are law, and ownership is fragmented among studios, producers, and financiers. In that ecosystem, copyright isn’t a moral claim; it’s a negotiated instrument. His emphasis on "no control" doesn’t merely describe legal reality; it asserts it as the proper psychological posture. The subtext is pragmatic and slightly chilling: if you want the platform, the budget, the reach, you surrender the text. The franchise gets to be the author; the author gets to be employed.