Eliza PerronIndia Desjardins' fantasy-comedy Hantée arrives in Quebec cinemas on October 9, 2026, marking another milestone for one of Canada's most beloved authors — and raising a question thousands of Canadian writers quietly dread: when you hand over your screenplay, exactly what did you give away?
A Ghost Story and a Very Real Legal Question
Desjardins, best known for the wildly popular Aurélie Laflamme book series, developed Hantée over several years before Rafaël Ouellet came on as director. Distributed by Immina Films with a runtime of 103 minutes, the film follows Mathilde, a rebellious teenager whose family relocates to a haunted countryside home, where she befriends Isabeau — a 19th-century ghost who has adapted to modern life but can no longer remember how she died. Reviews ahead of release call it a light, funny, family-friendly Quebec production with deeper themes: bullying, silenced women, and ecological activism running just beneath the comedic surface.
For Desjardins, Hantée is more than a new release. It is a creative work she wrote from scratch, owns conceptually, and shepherded from page to screen. That creative journey illustrates a legal tension every Canadian screenwriter faces: a film requires dozens of contributors — a director, producers, a composer, editors — yet the written story at the centre of it all is what makes it possible. So what does the writer actually keep?
In Canada, copyright in an original literary work — including a screenplay — vests automatically in the creator from the moment of creation, under Section 3 of the Copyright Act. No registration is required. That protection lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years, following amendments that came into force in 2022. But ownership and the ability to exploit a work are two different things — and the gap between them is where writers lose money.
What the Film Deal Actually Transfers
When a screenwriter licenses their script to a production company, the contract typically distinguishes between the underlying rights — the story, characters, world-building, and dialogue the writer created — and the film rights — the right to produce and distribute the specific motion picture. Most standard film agreements grant the producer a broad licence that includes the right to produce sequels, remakes, prequels, and sometimes derivative works in any medium. That grant can survive even if the production company is later sold, merged, or dissolved.
For writers who are also novelists, like India Desjardins, the distinction between a "film rights" deal and a "full adaptation rights" deal can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. A correctly scoped film-rights licence allows the author to retain the right to publish novelizations, license the story for a stage production, or write a television spinoff. A broadly worded all-rights assignment strips all of that away — often without the writer realizing it until a more lucrative deal appears on the horizon.
Industry guild agreements provide some protection. The Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma (SARTEC) negotiates minimum terms for Quebec-based French-language screenwriters; the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) covers English-language writers outside Quebec. Both establish floors for remuneration and residuals. But neither agreement prevents a writer without representation from signing a contract that goes beyond what the guild minimums require — or from agreeing to terms that conflict with their interests in ways the standard templates don't flag.
According to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, copyright in a work does not need to be assigned in writing to be valid, but an exclusive licence does need to be in writing to be enforceable. A verbal agreement granting a production company the "exclusive right" to produce a film may not actually bind the writer — but it may still be enough to trigger a costly legal dispute if the company acts on it and the writer then tries to re-option elsewhere.
When a Signature Costs More Than the Option Fee
Consider a Quebec novelist — call her Marie-Ève — who in 2024 optioned her three-book young-adult series to a Montreal production company for a TV adaptation. The option price was $12,000 for an 18-month period, with a production fee of $45,000 if the project was greenlit. The contract was drafted by the production company's lawyer. Marie-Ève signed without independent legal review.
Eighteen months later, the TV project stalled. The option lapsed without renewal. But the contract included a clause granting the company the right to produce "all adaptations and derivative works based on the property, including sequels and extensions in any medium." A copyright lawyer's subsequent review found that the clause, while broadly worded, was internally inconsistent — and a court would likely interpret the ambiguity against the drafter, i.e., the production company. Still, resolving the dispute required three months of correspondence and approximately $4,800 in legal fees before Marie-Ève was cleared to re-option her series to a competing streamer.
If she had engaged a copyright lawyer before signing — at a typical cost of $800 to $1,500 for a contract review — that $4,800 dispute cost would almost certainly have been avoided. The legal review would also have flagged the scope ambiguity and allowed her to negotiate it out before signing. Under that corrected scenario, by late 2025 she re-optioned the series for $28,000 with a clearly scoped licence specifying the medium (streaming only), territory (Canada and US), and the explicit exclusion of novelization and theatrical rights.
The if/then is direct: if you sign a broadly worded adaptation contract without independent legal review, you may inadvertently assign rights you intended to keep — including the right to publish further books in your own series. If you negotiate a properly scoped licence before signing, those rights remain yours and can be licensed again independently.
The Quebec Dimension: Moral Rights and the Lésion Clause
Writers in Quebec operate under an additional layer of protection that English-Canadian writers sometimes overlook. Under federal copyright law, every author holds moral rights — the right to the integrity of their work, and the right to be associated with it. Unlike economic copyright, moral rights cannot be assigned; they can only be waived. For a screenwriter, this matters because a waiver of moral rights in a film agreement means the producer can significantly alter the work — change the ending, strip the thematic content, add characters — without the writer's consent, provided the changes don't provably damage their reputation.
A narrowly scoped moral rights waiver (limited to changes required for the specific film production process, rather than unlimited alterations in perpetuity across all future adaptations) is a meaningful protection that experienced entertainment lawyers routinely negotiate. The difference between "changes required to produce the film" and "any changes in any medium at any time" is rarely a deal-breaker for the producer — but it is a significant protection for the writer.
Quebec's Civil Code also provides authors with additional leverage through its author's contract provisions (Arts. 2881–2883), which allow a court to intervene if the remuneration agreed upon is grossly disproportionate to the eventual commercial success of the work. This so-called lésion clause for authors has been applied in Quebec cases involving books adapted into commercially successful films. A provincial entertainment lawyer familiar with Quebec private law can identify whether this provision could give you additional negotiating room.
Five Steps Before You Sign Your Next Adaptation Deal
For Canadian writers navigating a film or TV adaptation deal in 2026, the protective steps are clear:
- Never sign the first draft. A production company's opening contract is drafted to maximize their rights. It is a starting point, not the final deal.
- Define the scope of the licence explicitly. The contract must specify medium, territory, term, and which derivative works are included — and which are not. Novelizations, stage adaptations, and publishing sequels should each be addressed.
- Check your guild affiliation. If your work qualifies under SARTEC or WGC minimum terms, those agreements set a floor that your individual contract cannot go below.
- Get independent legal review. Entertainment lawyers who specialize in copyright and author contracts typically review agreements for a flat fee of $800–$1,500. For a deal that could affect rights to a series worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, that is a negligible outlay.
- Negotiate a narrowly scoped moral rights waiver. Limit it to changes required for the specific production identified in the contract — not blanket alterations across all future adaptations in all media.
If you are unsure whether your current publishing or adaptation agreement gives away more than you realize, a Canadian copyright lawyer can review it and flag the gaps. For writers at the stage India Desjardins was at years ago — with an original story concept and a production company expressing interest — getting that review done before the first draft arrives is always the better choice.
You can also explore how other creators have navigated adaptation deals that collapsed mid-production — the legal principles around rights reversion apply directly to Canadian writers facing similar situations.
This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For questions about your specific contract or intellectual property rights, consult a lawyer licensed in your province.
