How to sell a screenplay to a production company in Spain (2026 guide)

What Spanish production companies actually buy, how to reach the person who decides, which materials to prepare and how to protect your script before sending it.

Story Pitcher teamPublished October 31, 2026

To sell a screenplay to a production company in Spain, you need to get three things right: pick companies that make what you write, give them short material (logline, synopsis and dossier) that says on one page what your project is and who it is for, and get it to the head of development by email, at industry markets or through pitching platforms. A script is rarely bought outright: the usual deal is an option or a development contract, because what a Spanish company buys is a project it can finance, not a spec script. This guide explains what a production company buys, what it usually pays, which materials to prepare, how to protect your work and what to expect afterward.

What a production company buys when you sell it a script

When a Spanish production company is interested in a script, it rarely pays the full price and walks away with it. One of three deals is far more common:

An option. The company pays a small amount for the exclusive right to develop the project and look for financing during an agreed period, often one or two years. If it manages to set the project up, it exercises the option and pays the agreed purchase price. If not, the rights revert to you.
A development contract. The company hires you to write or rewrite from your own material. You are paid in stages (treatment, outline, drafts) while it looks for a broadcaster, a platform or public funding.
An assignment of exploitation rights. This is the sale proper. The main payment is often tied to the project getting financed or going into production, because until then the company does not have the money.

Much of a production's money does not come from the production company. It comes from the broadcaster or platform commissioning the series, from grants by ICAA (Spain's national film institute) and the regions, from co-producers and from international sales. So the company does not only ask whether your story is good. It asks who it can sell it to and which funding it fits. If your project makes that answer easy, you stand a better chance than a better-written script that does not know where it belongs.

That explains something that puzzles newcomers: the company does not want the full script up front. It wants to know on one page what this is, who it is for and why now. It will ask for the script later, if the page has done its job.

How much a screenplay pays in Spain

There is no public market rate. Amounts depend on format, budget, the broadcaster or platform behind it and your track record. For a reference point when you negotiate, ALMA, the Spanish screenwriters' union, advises its members on rates and contracts, and the rules of ICAA grants set conditions on screenplay pay in the projects they fund.

What can be said with reasonable confidence:

An option pays little. It exists so the company does not lose the project while it shops it around, not so you can live on it.
The bulk of the payment usually arrives when the project is financed or shot, not at signature.
If you are hired to rewrite, every draft is paid. "Free drafts to see if it fits" are not professional practice and you can decline.
The remuneration rights collected by DAMA and SGAE (Spain's authors' rights societies) when the work is broadcast or screened are separate from the sale price.

Step 1: pick production companies that make what you write

The most expensive mistake is sending your project to every company you can find. A documentary company will not buy your action thriller, and one that only works with free-to-air channels will struggle to place an eight-episode adult drama with a streaming platform.

Before writing to anyone, answer three questions about each company:

What it has produced in the last three years. Look at its credits, not its "about us" page. If nothing recent resembles your project in genre, format or tone, drop it.
Which broadcasters and platforms it works with. Most companies work regularly with a handful of buyers. If your series is for a platform and the company has only made regional television, the road is much longer.
Who runs development. Find the head of development or content, not the executive producer who gives the interviews. Reading new projects is part of that person's job.

Where to look: the Spanish trade press (Audiovisual451, Panorama Audiovisual, Cineuropa) reports who produces what for whom; ICAA's catalog of Spanish cinema lists the producers of Spanish films; and producers' associations, national and regional, publish member lists. In one afternoon you can have a list of ten or fifteen companies that could genuinely make your project. That beats a list of a hundred that cannot.

Part of that list can come ready-made. On Story Pitcher, production companies declare what they are looking for, and your dashboard shows the ones that fit your pitch under "Looking for projects like yours". It does not replace checking their credits, but it tells you where to start.

Step 2: prepare the material a production company reads first

A production company receives far more projects than it can read. What gets opened is a short document that quickly answers "what is this." What does not get opened is a 110-page PDF with no context.

The basic material is three pieces:

A logline. One or two sentences with the protagonist, what they want, what stands in the way and what is at stake. If the logline does not hook, nobody reads on. Spend whatever time it takes.
A short synopsis. Half a page to a page. Tell the whole story, ending included. The company needs to know whether it works, not to be kept in suspense.
A dossier or one-pager. Format, genre, audience, tone, main characters, comparable projects (two or three recent works your project speaks to, not "it's like Game of Thrones") and a line on who you are and what you have done.

The full script or series bible comes later, when they ask. Have them finished, because they may ask the next day, but do not send them with the first email.

If you would rather not build this by hand, Story Pitcher drafts it from the PDF of your script, bible or dossier: it proposes a logline, a synopsis, a selling point and genre, format and period tags, and you review and edit everything before publishing. If you prefer to write it all yourself, you can.

Step 3: protect the script before you send it

There are two tools, and it pays to use both.

Intellectual property registration. Your rights as an author arise when you write the work, not when you register it. Registration is voluntary, but it gives you proof of date and authorship that carries weight in court. It is done at Spain's General Registry of Intellectual Property or its regional offices, for a fee per work. Register the script or treatment, not the idea: Spanish intellectual property law protects concrete works, not ideas.

Confidentiality agreement. It binds the reader not to disclose or use the material beyond evaluating it. The catch is that many production companies will not sign one to read unsolicited material, because it creates legal risk if they already have something similar in development. Asking for one by email before they know you usually closes the door.

One way out of that deadlock is a confidentiality framework the company can actually accept. Story Pitcher's was reviewed by lawyers and protects your project without stopping the company from working on projects with similar themes, which is exactly what makes companies refuse generic agreements. The company accepts it when requesting access to your dossier, and there is a record of who requested access, who got it and when. If you prefer your own agreement, you can substitute it.

Step 4: how to get your script to a production company

With your list and your material ready, there are four routes. Almost nobody gets in through just one.

Direct email. A short message to the development person: who you are in one line, the logline, format and genre, and whether you may send the dossier. No script attached. No ten companies copied on the same email. If there is no answer in three or four weeks, send one reminder and move on.

Markets and labs. Conecta Fiction & Entertainment, Iberseries & Platino Industria and the industry section of the San Sebastián Film Festival run pitch sessions and meetings with producers. You have to apply on time and often pass a selection, but the people listening there are looking for projects. Development labs run by foundations, authors' rights societies and festivals have a similar effect: a selected project reaches the company with a filter already passed.

Pitching platforms. They let companies you do not know find your project by searching for what they need, instead of relying on your email reaching the right person.

Competitions and open calls. Screenplay awards and calls from festivals, institutions and some broadcasters open occasional windows where a project without a producer can reach the people who decide. They are highly competitive and you cannot plan a career around them, but when one fits your project, it is worth the effort.

What happens after you send it

Silence is the norm. A company that does not reply is not saying the project is bad, only that it does not fit what it can sell right now. Move on to the next company on your list and keep writing.

The hardest part of that wait is knowing nothing. If your project is on Story Pitcher, the silence is no longer total: you see how many times your pitch has been viewed, who saved it and who asked for the dossier. You know where there is interest and where it is time to move on.

When a company is interested, the usual sequence is a call or meeting to get to know you and discuss the project, a request for the full script or bible, an internal reading period and, if all goes well, an offer of an option or a development deal. From first email to signed contract can take months. From contract to shooting, years, and many optioned projects never get made. That is not your failure: it is how the industry works.

Two pieces of advice for that stage:

Before you sign anything, have someone who knows read it. ALMA advises its members, and there are lawyers who specialize in film and television. A review costs far less than a misunderstood assignment clause.
Negotiate reversion. Ask that, if the company does not shoot within the agreed period, the rights return to you unconditionally.

The most common mistakes

No logline, or a logline that summarizes the theme rather than the story. "A series about loneliness in cities" is not a logline. "A caregiver discovers that her patient with dementia is the man who ruined her family" is.
Four-page synopses. Nobody reads them. If it does not fit on one page, the problem is usually the story, not the space.
Undefined format and genre. "It could be a film or a series, whatever the producer prefers" reads as if you have not decided what you want to tell.
Impossible comparables. Comparing yourself to the most expensive series of the year does not help a company working with regional television budgets. Choose comparables that company could have made.
Sending the full script unasked. It is the fastest way to get your email archived.
Not saying who you are. Two lines of background, even an award-winning short or a screenwriting master's, give the company a reason to trust you.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an agent to sell a screenplay in Spain? No. Representation for screenwriters is far less common than in the United States, and many projects go straight from writer to production company. An agent helps negotiate once there is interest, but is not a requirement to get in the door.

Can I send the same project to several companies at once? Yes, as long as you have not signed an exclusivity agreement. What you should not do is send a group email. Each company gets its own message and, if one shows interest, you tell the others before signing anything.

Do platforms like Netflix or Movistar Plus+ buy scripts directly? As a rule, no. Netflix states in its help center that it does not accept unsolicited submissions, and platforms usually commission projects from production companies they already work with. The way to a platform runs through one of those companies.

What if my project is a book or a novel? The process is the same with different material: instead of a script, the company evaluates the published work and an adaptation dossier. If the book is not yours, you need the adaptation rights first.