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Sahara Court Battle Settled By Jurors
This is a follow up to the Sahara court battle that I reported on a little while back. In the case between author and studio both sides lost a little. We get the scoop from the caves of Yahoo:<
strong>A jury determined Tuesday that adventure author Clive Cussler breached his contract and ordered him to pay $5 million to the production company that turned his novel “Sahara” into a box-office flop.The complex ruling left open the possibility that Cussler could end up pocketing more than he pays out. Jurors said Superior Court Judge John P. Shook should determine whether Crusader Entertainment, since renamed Bristol Bay Productions, must pay Cussler about $8 million for the screen rights to a second book.
There you have it folks. The author has to pay 5 Million to the studio but is getting 8 million from them. He walks away with 3 million, but one wonders if this will return to court. This sort of business must be tedious, exhausting and incredibly boring. I am glad I have never spent a day in court, I do not think I would enjoy myself.
This will go to appeal, as studios always do, and from there after years of legal wrangling Cussler will be forced to drop the suit or take a very tiny payout. He’s NOT getting 3 Mil or even 1 Mil.
But as far as losers go Cussler lost on this one, more than the studio. Rather than take this as an expensive lesson in the school of experience (novelists Dean Koontz, James Ellroy and Stephen King know this only too well) he made a spectacle of himself and other studios will be very reluctant to option his books into movies now. Granted he was a victim of the studio mentality, and an industry run by money-men and would-be marketing guru’s and I’m on his side, but he hurt himself here.
The studios are run by idiots, we all know this. And I’m not arguing that Cussler is justified to be pissed- I would have probably shot a suit or two by now and maybe McConaghey too. These studio idiots want compliant folks who won’t raise a stink when a crappy movie ruins the franchise it was adapted from -I get it. But suits get scared when authors who’ve been screwed fight back, not just the guys at Crusader/Bristol Bay, but studio suits EVERYWHERE in Hollywood. It’s like being a whistle-blower. Nobody wants to hire you afterwards because although you did the right thing they’re scared you’ll tattle their dirty dealings too. Remember, ALL the suits are idiots, not just he guys at Crusader.
Sahara was a dissapointment, maybe even a flop, but it wasn’t a bomb. Give it a few years and Dirk Pitt would have been ready to mount a big-screen comeback. But now?
Cussler should have allowed the rights to expire then resell them to another studio with a contract giving him a far stronger say in the production.
I just watched this movie and they both owe the World money.