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You may edit the post you are quoting here	Didn't sound or read like you were blaming both parties. As for Clive badmouthing the movie....can't say I blame him there,the only resemblence to the book were the characters names and the Texas...I'll give you that he probably should have seen it first but you never know..... There is a reason Aushutz(sp?) is a billionaire..he knows how to use people.....And he used Clive.........Clive naivley trusted someone to make a movie out of one of his children,and got screwed AGAIN. Clive has integrity and wouldn't want his name attached to anything to do with Pitt unless it was worthy of that name. Unlike Clancy who sells his books,takes the money and runs without a care if the finished product resembles his books or not. I'd love to see more Pitt movies but not if they're going to be so far removed from the book as Sahara was...for crying out loud Rudi was such a pussy he couldn't even fire a flare gun.......and as for the statement that the movie wanted a BLACK Al????????????? I'd sue them too...........
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Last 10 Posts [ In reverse order ]

oswalder	Posted on May 16 2007, 05:31 PM
	Finally, closure. Thanks for posting that, Michelle! Honestly, I don't outrightly disagree with the ruling. I was never impressed with Clive's bashing of the film, especially before it was finished and before he ever saw it (if he even has). That was pretty unprofessional, and he would have been better suited to just say "no comment" when asked what he thought about the film. I think we all know that "no comment" means "It sucks but I'm not going to say that out loud." I'm glad, though, that Anshutz doesn't get off scott free. If the juror's are making him pay for the second movie, though, do you think he's going to still make it? If he does, will Clive still have script approval?
jet_doctor	Posted on May 16 2007, 03:44 AM
	Just saw the following on my internet news: [I LOVE the last paragraph!] Everyone's a Winner in Sahara Scrap Tue May 15, 3:26 PM Clive Cussler didn't strike gold in his lawsuit over the ill-fated big-screen adaptation of Sahara, but he didn't exactly come up with a plateful of sand, either. After eight days of deliberation, a Los Angeles jury ordered the author to pay Crusader Entertainment $5 million in the production company's breach-of-contract lawsuit against Cussler, who Crusade claimed overstated his book sales to secure a huge payday for the movie rights to two of his adventure novels featuring the character Dirk Pitt. The jurors ruled that Cussler breached "an implied covenant of good faith" by badmouthing the film before it hit theaters, which Crusader accused him of doing because the writer was peeved that he didn't get more of a say in the final screenplay. But although the jury obviously believed that Cussler was in the wrong, the panel didn't exactly think that Crusader was in the right, either, ordering the Denver-based outfit to cut a check to Cussler for $8.5 million, saying the company owes him for a second book it bought the rights to that never made it to celluloid. Cussler Sinking "Sahara"? "Amityville" House Haunts Box Office "Sahara" Too Hot for "Fever Pitch" E! Online Cussler got the ball rolling on the dueling lawsuits in January 2004, suing Crusader (which is now known as Bristol Bay Productions) for $40 million in damages for supposedly making the film without consulting him. Crusader countersued in April 2004, saying the author was trying to sabotage Sahara because his offer to pen the script himself was refused, and that Cussler did in fact approve an early version of the script, but then refused to cooperate with the rest of the creative process. Cussler, meanwhile, claimed that his contract gave him the final say on any screenplay based on his work. In its complaint, Crusader estimated that Cussler's disparaging words could have wound up costing the production $40 million and endangering plans for a franchise—an optimistic guess, so it turned out, because the movie has reportedly lost about $105 million to date. Sahara, directed by Breck Eisner and costarring then real-life couple Mathew McConaughey and Penélope Cruz, opened Apr. 8, 2005, and promptly fizzled, grossing only $68.7 million domestically. Cussler and Crusader have been battling it out in court since January, culminating with the 75-year-old Cussler spending seven days on the stand and learning that he wasn't quite as successful as he thought. An audit of 26,000 pages of royalty statements and sales reports conducted by Los Angeles litigation consultants Freeman & Mills Inc. revealed that, between 1973 and June 2000, Cussler had sold no more than 42 million books, rather than the 100 million-plus he had attested to in 2005 in a sworn statement saying that the figure had been "firmly established." Crusader, which is owned by Denver billionaire and Qwest Communications cofounder Philip Anschutz, alleged that Cussler and his literary agent Peter Lampack had inflated their numbers while trying to wrangle a $20 million deal for Sahara and another book. Anschutz stated in a deposition that both Cussler and Lampack touted the books' sales during negotiations, with producer Stuart Benjamin and his former attorney William Immerman also testifying to that effect. Cussler's attorney, Bertram Fields, called the claim "utter hogwash," arguing that the subject never came up. "He was either lying or he has a poor memory," Cussler said when asked about Anschutz's statement. The novelist also claimed at times to be confused or having a hard time remembering what his associates told him about his sales, saying that he had been told to use the term "books in print" instead of "copies sold," but that he must have forgotten to do so. It's hard to say if he was that befuddled, but some of Cussler's testimony did earn a dose of skepticism from the judge. "Mr. Cussler is smart like a fox," Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John P. Shook said Apr. 20, according to a transcript from a closed-door meeting between the jurist and each side's attorneys. "He has got an iron-trap mind. He knows what is going on here."
bjf123	Posted on May 13 2007, 12:55 AM
	Unfortunately, regardless of the outcome of the trial, the end result will probably be no more Dirk Pitt movies.
rockbank	Posted on May 9 2007, 06:25 AM
	From what I've read here, this looks very promising for CC. If Anschutz's attorneys can only come up with a 40million vs 100 million book sales, that strikes me as desperation for case they know is all but lost. But though we may not see any more Dirk Pitt films, CC may well have struck a bigger blow at the Hollywood machinery than anybody realizes. (Just as a note to the contributor who said that Ian Fleming didn't complain about the movie version of Dr.No, that's not quite true. He stated that those who had read the book may be disappointed, but those that hadn't would love the film. Fleming was happy with the direction of the early films, so much that he put Ursula Andress into his 1963 novel, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and pointed out Bond was of scottish descent(like Connery) in the next novel "You Only Live Twice")
Sandecker Fan	Posted on May 4 2007, 02:23 PM
	QUOTE (CCfansince1976 @ May 2 2007, 01:10 PM) The bottom line is... nobody wins (lawyers excepted), and no more films... With the way the studios have brutalized the books I don't see it as any loss if there isn't anymore movies. Dirk Pitt is where he belongs. In my mind. Everytime I read the books I can see the action in my head and it's a million times better than anything that Hollywood can portray. That's part of the problem with people these days is they expect instant gratification. They aren't willing to take the time to enjoy a well written story. They want Hollywood to tell them their interpretaion of the story. To Hollywood I say
Ace Roberts	Posted on May 3 2007, 12:58 PM
	Who knows what is going to happen - the trial is now in the hands of the jury - I just hope they are intelligent enough to see past the circus performance of Marvin Putnam's summation Tuesday - apparently their whole position is the "Forty million books versus 100 million books constitutes fraud". And ..."It was a popcorn movie. It wasn't Macbeth. But it wasn't Raise the Titanic either. It was a big, lush movie. But the movie didn't find its audience. Where were the 100 million fans?" What is wrong with this picture? You're telling me a major motion picture production company with (supposedly) intelligent people running it based their entire quarter of a billion dollar franchise on what two people "said" versus doing their homework - and that they're still trying to ask "where are the 100 million fans?" thinking that each fan bought ONE book each? This is ludicrous logic and any juror with intelligence beyond the 6th grade will see through this in a heartbeat.
Riyukco	Posted on May 2 2007, 07:28 PM
	QUOTE (CCfansince1976 @ May 2 2007, 01:10 PM) The bottom line is... nobody wins (lawyers excepted), and no more films... That the way the world works I guess. Darn. I want more movies.
oswalder	Posted on May 2 2007, 06:07 PM
	I'm glad to see that the actual issues at hand are being discussed again, rather than the irrelevant stuff. I can't imagine being on the jury and listening to this trial for hours on end. Ugh.
CCfansince1976	Posted on May 2 2007, 05:10 PM
	The bottom line is... nobody wins (lawyers excepted), and no more films...
Ace Roberts	Posted on May 1 2007, 06:25 PM
	QUOTE (Riyukco @ May 1 2007, 01:49 PM) QUOTE (Riyukco @ Apr 26 2007, 09:43 AM) Will this ever be over? Well - closing arguments is usually an indication that the end is in sight - however - anybody in the real world of litigation or has seen the movie 12 Angry Men knows this thing "could" drag on for some time.

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