Troubled: The Movie

I've sold the film rights to my memoir

My book Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class has been optioned for a scripted feature film by Korchula Productions.

Troubled covers my experiences growing up in foster homes in Los Angeles during the 1990s. It explores the tragedy, poverty, and violence that shaped my adolescent years, as well as the steps and missteps I took to escape the drama and disorder of my youth. These experiences led me to flee home as soon as I could at the age of 17, enlisting in the U.S. Air Force, and culminated in my admission to Yale, where I discovered just how vast the social class divides in our country have grown. 

The movie will be a narrative film (i.e., with actors, not a documentary). Courtney and Ted Balaker (the award-winning filmmakers behind Korchula Productions) believe Troubled is the kind of story that can entertain viewers and help nudge our national discussion in a more sensible direction. It’s also the kind of story that Hollywood is increasingly reluctant to tell. The Balaker’s production company is devoted to making important ideas entertaining.

Making any independent film is daunting, but given the entertainment industry’s cowardice and conformity, making a heterodox independent film is especially challenging. Ted wrote a long essay about the industry intolerance he and Courtney have faced. But the Balakers know how to bring heterodox films to mainstream audiences. 

They’ve done it with movies such as Little Pink House starring two-time Academy Award nominee Catherine Keener, Can We Take a Joke? featuring Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette, and, most recently, The Coddling of the American Mind, which is based on the New York Times bestselling book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. The Coddling of the American Mind is also the very first “Substack presents” feature film and will be released on Amazon, Apple TV, and other platforms in October. Its campus tour has hit three countries and more than 50 campuses including Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, UCLA, and Duke. The movie has been embraced by public figures such as Steven Pinker, John Cleese, and Peter Boghossian who says, “Every single person in the United States should see this film without exception.”

Apart from the usual types of streaming and theatrical distribution, Ted and Courtney’s films have been shown on major airlines, on hundreds of college campuses, and at many special events, including a bipartisan congressional screening. 

Like me, Courtney and Ted aren’t interested in just preaching to the converted. Of course, we want those who love Troubled the book to love the movie version too, but we’re also eager to use the movie to bring new audiences to the book and to this Substack. So making Troubled the movie represents only one part of the journey ahead. The subsequent impact campaign will be a major endeavor in itself.

In addition to making movies, Courtney and Ted have helped other heterodox filmmakers reach mainstream audiences. Here Substack could play an important role. With its free speech ethos and politically diverse community, Substack could liberate filmmakers like it has liberated writers. 

After releasing The Coddling movie on Substack, filmmakers have been contacting the Balakers to learn more about their unusual release strategy. These filmmakers also feel the chilling effect that has swept through the industry. They want to preserve their artistic freedom, and they think Substack might be the way to do it. 

So in addition to bringing the story and themes in Troubled to new audiences, Courtney, Ted, and I hope that Troubled the movie will help pave the way for other heterodox filmmakers to leverage Substack to reach mainstream audiences. 

The next step on this journey is fundraising. If you’re interested in supporting the film financially, please contact Ted: ted.balaker [at] gmail.com.

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You may be wondering, “What does it mean when a book is optioned for a film?” 

It means that an entity, usually a production company, purchases the rights to adapt your book. They pay you some money for the rights to produce a film or a TV show. The option lasts for some set period, typically 12 to 18 months. At the end of that set period of time, they can either drop the option, allowing you to sell the rights to another company. Or they can re-up and pay you more money to retain the rights for another set period of time. In other words, just because a book is optioned, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be made into a movie. 

But with the constant addition of new streaming services and the hunt for pre-existing intellectual property with a proven sales record, content is in high demand. 

In the eyes of many in Hollywood, a book serves as a proof of concept, demonstrating that specific characters, story arcs, worlds, and scenarios can successfully engage and captivate an audience.

Does this mean I’m going to make a lot of money? Not really. Authors receive an optioning fee, which is not a huge sum of money. It’s nothing to sneeze at. If the show or film gets picked up, though, that’s when the real money comes in. There’s a bunch of stuff in there: per-episode payments, fees if you’re an executive producer (which I am), bonuses, etc. It’s all a bit confusing and I don’t totally understand the structure in my option agreement, but my agent assures me we got a good deal. 

A lot of things have to go right in order to make a movie or a TV show. Even if you sign a deal with a producer that has a deal with Netflix or HBO or whatever, you still need a good script, financing, actors, a distributor, etc. Someone needs to write a screenplay. Usually not the author, unless you are already an established screenwriter. People have to be cast for the movie, which depends on the script/producer/money/interest. Making a movie takes a lot of money. 

Then someone has to distribute the movie or series. And you’re not going to get that before you have money/producers/script/actors/etc.

Will I be involved in writing the script? A friend in Hollywood tells me an author is the worst person to adapt their own book, and especially their own memoir. You can’t be impartial enough to understand what works for adapting the story to the screen and what doesn’t. The viewer might also be suspicious if a biopic was written by the subject—how honest can it really be? This being said, I will be consulted for some of the decisions throughout the filmmaking process. 

With regard to casting decisions, I don’t know how much of a say I get, though I’m sure it’s in the contract somewhere. I met with the producers and the casting director in Los Angeles several weeks ago. Only half-joking, I said it’s important to cast an actor who looks like a more attractive version of me to play the young adult version of Rob Henderson. Surely there must be some good looking half Asian, half Latino actors in Hollywood. Moreover, I’ve heard that in the film industry, similar to book publishing, nothing moves very fast. When I was writing Troubled, friends and family and readers constantly asked me for updates. “Rob, when is your book coming out?” All I could do was shrug and say “probably soon, I hope.” Relatedly, I think movie/TV tie-in covers generally look ugly, but if that helps to get more people to read Troubled then I’m for it. Nothing is actively in production just yet. Part of me feels like even when production does begin I won’t believe there will be a film until I’m actually sitting in a movie theater watching it. For this reason, I probably won’t talk too much about it. I was like this with my book, too. I didn’t talk much about it, because, on some level, I didn’t really believe it would ever be published. 

It felt too surreal.

The truth is that—perhaps because I’ve come from humble beginnings—I still haven’t fully internalized all of this good fortune. 

Again, if you’re interested in helping to support the film financially, please contact Ted: ted.balaker [at] gmail.com.