Final Draft

July, 2000
by Tom Singer

When American Beauty Screenwriter Alan Ball was asked at this year's Santa Barbara Film Festival to describe the secret of scriptwriting in two words, he said "Final Draft." And director Anthony Minghella paid homage to Final Draft at the end of his recent picture, The Talented Mr. Ripley, recognizing the software in the final credits. It is that type of industry enthusiasm that has fueled the popularity of Final Draft, word-processing software that automates the rigid, demanding formatting of scriptwriting.

Less than 10 years after its launch in 1991, Final Draft is generating $5 million in annual sales to customers all over the world. "About 90 percent of our sales are based on recommendations from existing customers, " says Marc Madnick, president and CEO of the Encino, California-based company. "Wherever we go, at places such as Cannes, we're celebrities." He pauses and corrects himself. "Well, the product is a celebrity."

The market for script-specific software is at about $7.5 million, he estimates. "It keeps growing, and our sales are growing 20 percent to 30 percent every year." It may seem strange that such a specialized product can support monthly sales of more than 2,000 units, at $249 each, but Madnick points to a Hollywood cliché: "Everybody is a screenwriter by desire. Everyone dreams of making it in Hollywood."

That was certainly true of the company's founders, Madnick and Ben Cahan, who had attended the University of Maryland together, graduating in the mid-1980s, and had become Hollywood roommates while pursing their own dreams of scriptwriting stardom. They were driven to distraction when they tried to adhere to scriptwriting style rules while writing with a regular word processor, Madnick says. For instance, he says, the names of characters have to be centered and capitalized, and specific pagination requirements have to be followed. "We seemed to spend half our time tabbing and making correct page breaks." A program was needed to automate the formatting and let the writer think unencumbered. In 1989, Cahan, whose bachelor's degree was in computer sciences, finally said, "I can write it." Madnick, who had a degree in finance, replied, "I can sell it." The two went to work in their apartment, starting a company out-of-pocket with funds from their day jobs. Madnick was working as a movie-production accountant; Cahan was developing film budgeting and scheduling software. After two years of constant tinkering, they had what they felt was a viable product and began dialing their movie contacts to pitch it.

While other scripting products were already on the market, they were add-ons to existing word-processing programs, Madnick says. "We pioneered all-in-one custom software for scriptwriting." Competing products include Scriptware and Movie Magic Screenwriter, but Madnick believes Final Draft's quality has prevailed. Customers include such Hollywood notables as Tom Hanks, Robert Altman and Steven Bochco, and Final Draft software can be found on the racks of such varied retailers as Virgin Megastore, Fry's Electronics and Best Buy; on-line at BarnesandNoble.com and at the company's Web site, www.finaldraft.com.

Madnick, 35, runs the company; equal partner Cahan, 36, has the title chairman. Final Draft now has 25 employees, producing a line that, in addition to several updates to the original product, includes Final Draft A/V which is tailored to advertising and corporate-video use. Although Madnick "got close" to selling a script himself, his big hit has been Final Draft, he says. "We went into this because we were screenwriters ourselves. The way it turned out is something we never imagined, but the business just grew because of two hardworking guys."