Cussler Verdict Reached

A jury ordered a production company May 15th to pay action-adventure author Clive Cussler $8.5 million for money owed to the author for a book that was never turned into a movie.

But jurors also ordered Cussler to pay $5 million to the production company, Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz’s Crusader Entertainment, that turned his novel "Sahara" into a movie that wound up flopping at the box office.

The jury reached the verdicts in the complex, multimillion dollar dispute between Cussler and the production company over the 2005 action-adventure film "Sahara." Jurors who heard 14 weeks of testimony deliberated for eight days.

The decision followed a seven-year struggle to get "Sahara," starring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz, to the big screen.

Cussler sued Crusader in 2004, claiming the company reneged on a contract that gave him approval rights over the film’s screenplay. Cussler, 75, sought $40 million in damages.

Crusader countersued, accusing Cussler of duping it into adapting his book into a film based on an inflated number of novels he had sold over his lifetime.

The company also said Cussler clashed with a fleet of screenwriters brought in to polish the script, tried to get producers to accept his screenplay version and bad mouthed the film before its April 2005 release. Crusader asked for more than $110 million in damages.

The case hinged on two key points: what rights were given to Cussler and which side first acted in bad faith.

Cussler maintained the contract gave him sole and absolute rights over the screenplay and a less-authoritative consulting role once filming began.

Crusader’s attorneys argued the company would have never paid Cussler an unprecedented $10 million to adapt a book into a film if it had known the novelist had only sold 40 million novels—not the 100 million he claimed at the time the contract was negotiated in 2000.

Cussler countered he was deceived from the outset and Crusader failed to honor the terms of the contract.

The trial featured testimony from producers, screenwriters, lawyers and Cussler, who all explained why "Sahara" was difficult and lost money.

Among those who gave their accounts in court included the film’s director, Breck Eisner, son of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner; producers Howard and Karen Baldwin; and Cussler’s literary agent, Peter Lampack.

But others on the witness list—McConaughey, former Paramount Pictures executive Sherry Lansing and Anschutz – ever were called to the stand. Attorneys did play for jurors a videotaped deposition of Anschutz.

Although the film debuted No. 1 at the box office, it grossed only $68 million in the U.S. Crusader’s attorneys claim the movie lost more than $80 million.