For studios & production companies
Keep turning scripts away. Or let us receive them for you.
You can go on returning scripts unopened. Or Gatehouse can receive them for you, lock each one, and make sure anything too close to your projects never reaches your team. You don’t have to read anything, reply to anyone, or buy a thing.
Talk to us →Northlight Pictures
Los Angeles, CA
Enclosed: 1 screenplay, 104 pages
Returned unopened
Unsolicited material not accepted
Why the door is shut
A script nobody used. A lawsuit anyway.
This is the scenario every studio lawyer has in mind — and the reason scripts come back unopened.
Year 1
A script arrives
A writer emails a cruise-ship heist thriller to a development executive.
Year 1
It gets passed around
An assistant opens it, forwards it to a colleague, and saves it to a shared drive.
Year 1
The studio passes
Nobody’s interested. A week later, nobody remembers reading it.
Year 3
A similar film comes out
The studio releases a cruise-ship heist — one its own team had been developing for years.
Year 3
The writer sues
Now the studio has to show it didn’t use a script it can barely remember receiving.
What happens next
Even when the studio wins, it pays.
Most of these claims fail. Showing that they should can take months, and a lot of money.
- Lawyers, for months
- Searching years of email
- Interviewing executives and assistants
- Depositions
- Release and financing delays
- Nervous insurers
- Bad press
- Pressure to settle, even when innocent
When a letter arrives
The questions are always the same. Now you have the answers.
The question
Today
With Gatehouse
Did we even receive it?
Search everyone’s inbox
On the record, with the date
What did the writer agree to?
Whatever the email implied
The exact terms and release they signed
Which version was it?
Nobody’s sure
The exact file, locked since arrival
Who at the studio saw it?
Interview everyone
Names, dates and what was shown
Were we already making something similar?
Dig up old files
Your project list, dated
Did anyone read the full script?
Hard to prove a negative
Yes or no, on record
What changes for you
Say yes to new writers without taking the risk in-house.
What you get
- Say yes to new writers again, through your own website
- Your staff never receive an unsolicited script
- Anything too close to your projects never reaches you
- No duty to read, reply, or buy
- A dated record of every step, made at the time
- Writers sign the terms before they send anything
What it asks of you
- One line per project you’re developing
- Or a short phone call from us once a month instead
That’s all.
Your part
Four steps. One of them is waiting.
Set things up once. The only ongoing job is keeping a one-line project list up to date — and we can do that for you.
- 1
Agree the terms
The terms writers sign before they send anything. Your lawyers approve them.
- 2
Give us your project list
One line per project. Or we’ll phone once a month and keep it for you.
- 3
Wait
Gatehouse does the work.
- Receive
- Compare
- Keep the record
- Deal with the writer
Gatehouse · not your team
- 4
Read, if you like
Read a summary that’s clear of your projects. Or do nothing.
Your project list
Your slate never leaves the building. One line does.
No scripts, decks or treatments — just enough to spot a script that’s too close. Kept in your own private space, under NDA, and never shown to anyone. Prefer nothing in writing? We phone once a month and keep it for you.
How slate protection works →- “Time-travel wild western comedy set in Nashville”
- “Heist on a 1960s cruise ship”
- “Female-led submarine thriller”
- “Haunted ski resort horror”
- “Coming-of-age drama in a Welsh mining town”
- “Talking-dog family Christmas comedy”
- “Biopic of a Motown session drummer”
- “Zombie outbreak on a cross-Channel ferry”
- “Rival food-truck owners fall in love in Austin”
- “Near-future courtroom drama with an AI witness”
Not a submissions platform
We’re not selling submissions. We’re selling distance.
Distance between your staff and unsolicited scripts — and a written record of exactly how much distance there was.
A submissions platform
Gatehouse
What it’s for
Platform: Getting writers read
Gatehouse: Keeping the studio clear of claims
Who it’s built around
Platform: The writer
Gatehouse: The studio’s legal position — with fair treatment for writers
What your team receives
Platform: The pile
Gatehouse: Nothing, unless a summary is clear of your projects and you choose to read it
Your plans
Platform: Not their concern
Gatehouse: A confidential project list, kept in your own private space, never shown to anyone
The script
Platform: Stored, browsable, often scored
Gatehouse: Locked with the writer’s password. We can’t read it
The record
Platform: An upload log, if that
Gatehouse: Built around the questions a claimant’s lawyer would ask
Straight talk
What we won’t promise.
No service makes a studio lawsuit-proof. What we do is make a claim as hard as possible to bring. How, claim by claim.
- We can’t stop someone copying a script after they’ve been allowed to read it.
- We only know what happens through Gatehouse — not scripts sent to staff some other way.
- The comparison only knows what’s on your list. Keep it current — or let us call and keep it for you.
- We’re not your lawyers. Your counsel should review the terms and release, and still makes the calls.
Working with us
We’re shaping this with a small number of studios.
There’s no price list yet, on purpose. We’d rather build the service around how your development and legal teams actually work. The studio pays; writers never do; we take no cut of any deal.
A pilot includes
- An official submissions page on your own website
- Terms and a release for writers, agreed with your counsel
- Your project list — written by you, or kept for you by a monthly call
- The full record, yours to keep
Open the door. Keep the facts.
Gatehouse handles the receiving and the record keeping. Your team decides whether anything is worth reading.