Who Owns A Movie? Is It The Scriptwriter, The Director Or The Producer?

Is it fair to give the ownership of a movie to the man [Producer/Executive Producer] with the financial power? Or should it go to the man [Director] who directed the movie, the person who narrated the story to the scriptwriter to develop or the ownership should belong to the scriptwriter who transformed the story to a script?


After my acting course and years as a member of several stage acting groups, it taught me that, movie production is a tiring and demanding venture. I was also taught that, it’s a field that requires the services of many professionals. No one has been able to make a movie single-handedly as far as I know.

Just last weekend, two personalities in Ghana; one a known music-producer –now-turned-a-movie-producer and, an award winning scriptwriter cum costume professional were involved in a needless argument where they displayed how childish some grown up can be on radio.

What they displayed on radio was unintelligent but before I go into what triggered their bust-up. Let me try to throw in some bit of education on here: Only a story cannot make a movie and without a story, there can’t be a movie. This means that, a story is required to be developed into a script to make a movie.

Now back to the two personalities. The first person said he narrated a story to be developed into a script, hence claiming the movie is his. Also the other party argued that, she developed the story into a script, meaning the movie is hers. I doubt if any of them thought about the director and the producer.

Even when a story is turned into a script, a director and a producer are needed to make a movie. The Director directs the casts on set whiles the Producer or the Executive Producer takes care of the finances.

Aside the other esteemed professionals needed to complete a movie; it appears that, the aforementioned folks play integral part in movie making… So the question is: Who then owns a movie? What do you think?

If the story narrator and scriptwriter can fight needless about the ownership of a movie, can the cameraman or the light man also claim ownership because they rolled the camera and lighted the set for the movie?