Assertion Not publicly verifiable AI assessment confidence: 80% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Meredith Baer sold her debut screenplay 'Prisoners' for $250,000 in 1980

Meredith Baer · Meridith Baer Home: Meridith Baer. She Started Over at 50 and Put Home Staging on the Map. · Dec 1, 2025 · at 18:19

Meredith Baer describes transitioning from acting to screenwriting and selling her debut movie script based on growing up at San Quentin Prison.

0:00 / 0:04exact quote · 4.7s

720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark

“Well, I sold it for a quarter of a million dollars in 1980.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Meredith Baer sold her first screenplay, 'Prisoners', for $250,000 in 1980.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

While Meredith Baer is confirmed in production credits as co-screenwriter for the feature film 'Prisoners' (filmed in 1982) and retrospective biographical accounts (such as a June 2011 University of Colorado Boulder alumni profile) cite a $250,000 sale price, there is no contemporary 1980 film trade reporting or official guild/contract documentation in the public domain to independently verify the exact financial terms or execution date of the sale. Because historical private script purchase contracts from 1980 are not publicly documented and all available figures trace back to self-reported accounts, the claim cannot be definitively verified with public information.

Meredith Baer received story and co-screenplay credit for the Keith Barish Productions/20th Century Fox film 'Prisoners', filmed in 1982.
Retrospective profiles, including a June 2011 Coloradan profile, repeat the $250,000 figure for the sale of 'Prisoners', with some sources dating the transaction to 1981.
No contemporary 1980 film trade coverage (e.g., Variety, The Hollywood Reporter) or Writers Guild of America contract records are publicly documented to corroborate the $250,000 valuation or 1980 timeline.

Checked against

[1] wikipedia.org [2] wikipedia.org [3] alchetron.com [4] colorado.edu [5] wikipedia.org

"Prisoners" "Meridith Baer" "Keith Barish" "Meridith Baer" "Prisoners" "Prisoners" "New Zealand" "Meridith Baer" OR "Meredith Baer" "Prisoners" 1981 OR 1982 OR 1983 "Meredith Baer" OR "Meridith Baer"

assessed as of 2026-09-03

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

Meredith Baer Prisoners

⚑ Spot an error? Report it

More from Meredith Baer

Opinion

Traditional interior designers are ill-suited for home staging's intense physical demands

“I wasn't hiring interior designers. No one's gonna walk around in high heels and a cute dress and do staging. It's hard work.”

Meredith Baer Dec 1, 2025 ▶ 45:59 Meridith Baer Home: Meridith Baer. She Started Over at 50 and Put Home Staging on the Map.

Opinion

Baer: San Quentin prison grounds were the safest place to live

“You know, it was the safest place to live. Who was going to steal my bicycle? You know, it was pretty much go out and play and come home when it's dark, That kind of a childhood, and I felt very safe. There were guards all over the place.”

Meredith Baer Dec 1, 2025 ▶ 4:58 Meridith Baer Home: Meridith Baer. She Started Over at 50 and Put Home Staging on the Map.

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Baer: Bob Guccione Asked Her to Pose Nude in Penthouse

“And then Guccione Wanted to put me in the magazine. He wanted me to be naked in the magazine, and I went.”

Meredith Baer Dec 1, 2025 ▶ 14:07 Meridith Baer Home: Meridith Baer. She Started Over at 50 and Put Home Staging on the Map.

Assertion Contradicted

Government forced Winston to pull Baer's cigarette ads for looking 16

“They, in fact, with my Winston ads, the government made them tape my ads down, because I always looked young for my age. They thought I looked 16. And that it was just wrong for my image to encourage children to smoke.”

Meredith Baer Dec 1, 2025 ▶ 16:17 Meridith Baer Home: Meridith Baer. She Started Over at 50 and Put Home Staging on the Map.

Insight

Anchor home staging fees to the seller's monthly mortgage holding costs

“First of all, I thought, what I'm doing is going to sell their house, and it's going to sell it fast. And so I figure, their monthly mortgage has to be X. And every month that it's on the market, they're paying that. So do they want to sell it in one month, or…”

Meredith Baer Dec 1, 2025 ▶ 33:50 Meridith Baer Home: Meridith Baer. She Started Over at 50 and Put Home Staging on the Map.

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Baer's first staged home sold for $500,000 over asking price

“So the house sold in a matter of days for half a million over asking to the head of one of the studios.”

Meredith Baer Dec 1, 2025 ▶ 25:50 Meridith Baer Home: Meridith Baer. She Started Over at 50 and Put Home Staging on the Map.

Meredith Baer sold her debut screenplay 'Prisoners' for $250,000 in 1980

More from Meredith Baer

Turn any episode into a week of clips.