I know about WGA and Library of Congress copyright registration, but someone
told me that films also get MPAA numbers on the scripts? Is this true?
–V. Thomas
You don’t need to worry about this. Really. Ever. At all. I’ve made a couple
of big studio movies, and I’ve never seen an MPAA number on anything.
But since you’re curious, I’ll tell you a bit about the the magic numbers.
The MPAA is a trade organization made up of
the seven major film studios: Fox, Warner Bros., Sony, MGM, Disney, Universal
and Paramount. While these studios compete fiercely with each other, they work
together through the MPAA on issues of common interest, such as preventing
piracy, maintaining copyright, and establishing ratings. The MPAA — specifically
its president, Jack Valenti — is the "face" of the film industry
to Congress.
Way down on the list of MPAA responsibilities is the job of keeping track
of its members’ movies, for all sorts of internal reasons. That’s when a movie
is assigned a number, which is probably the same "MPAA number" your
friend saw on a script.
It’s nothing a screenwriter ever needs to worry about, but now you know.