Los Angeles – Best-selling author Clive Cussler testified Tuesday he was told by a producer that he didn’t have screenplay-approval rights for the film “Sahara” following numerous attempts to polish the script.
Cussler, 75, maintains he entered into an agreement with Crusader Entertainment that paid him $10 million for the adaptation of his book “Sahara” and gave him approval of the final screenplay before filming began.
The dispute over Cussler’s creative control is the key point in the author’s suit against Crusader, a company owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz. Cussler claims Anschutz’s company breached the contract reached between the two sides, while Crusader has sued the novelist, accusing him of being uncooperative and disparaging the movie publicly before it came out. Each suit seeks millions of dollars.
Cussler, whose testimony lasted 1 1/2 hours, was not cross-examined by attorneys representing Anschutz’s company.
Outside of court, they said they planned to question Cussler when they present their case.
“They just gave us their best case, and it didn’t warrant a response,” attorney Marvin Putnam said.
Cussler disputed the notion put forth by Crusader’s attorneys during opening statements that he was a defiant presence during the filmmaking process. He testified that he approved at least four versions of the screenplay but each time was told by producers another writer would be hired to work on the script.
“I can appreciate other writers’ works,” he said.
Cussler said he provided three screenplay rewrites himself between September 2001 and July 2002.
