The Writers Co-Op

John Wells Productions are to house an interesting new venture: a co-op of screenwriters designed to get them a better slice of pie and more say in how their scripts are handled.

In return for greatly cheaper early drafts, the writers will be rewarded with payment from first dollar gross returns and production bonuses. They'll also be able to veto any rewrites or altertaion and be consulted througout pre-production, production and post.

Here's the list of writers already signed up:

Ron Bass, Henry Bean, David Benioff, Scott Frank, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, Robert Nelson Jacobs, Nicholas Kazan, Callie Khouri, Richard LaGravanese, Phil Alden Robinson, Bruce Joel Rubin, Stephen Schiff, Tom Schulman, Ed Solomon, Dana Stevens, Robin Swicord, Michael Tolkin, Rafael Yglesias.

There's a big fistful of supremely talented folk in that list. I'm hoping this co-op works out for them.

According to Variety, the idea was first hatched when Wells was the head of the WGA and Kazan and Schulman were members of it's executive board.