LOS ANGELES-
A case pitting author Clive Cussler against a production company over the 2005 film “Sahara” went to a jury Wednesday after more than three months of testimony, exhibits and arguments about the struggle to make the movie and why it didn’t fare better at the box-office.
The nine-woman, three-man jury must now decide if Crusader Entertainment breached a contract with Cussler or the novelist committed fraud by inflating the number of books he sold, which led to the deal to make “Sahara.” Both claims are at the core of dueling lawsuits that each seek millions of dollars in damages.
Jurors will begin a full day of deliberations Thursday.
Crusader attorney Marvin Putnam said in closing arguments that his client honored the contract, but it was the aging author and his literary agents who defrauded the company by claiming Cussler had sold 100 million books.
“Without that fraud … we wouldn’t have had the contract,” Putnam said. “This deal would never have happened.”
Crusader believed by making “Sahara,” which was based on Cussler’s action-adventure book of the same name, it would lead to a possible film franchise on the scale of “Indiana Jones” and “James Bond.”
To secure the rights, Crusader owner and Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz paid $10 million to adapt the book into a film. Crusader had the rights to two books and a potential option on a third for the series featuring Cussler’s alter-ego Dirk Pitt.
Although the film debuted in April 2005 at No. 1 at the box office, the movie starring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz grossed only $68 million in the U.S. Crusader’s attorneys claim it lost more than $80 million.
The main reason, Putnam said, was because the Cussler fanbase wasn’t as big as promised. An audit later revealed the number of Cussler books sold was around 40 million at the time the contract was negotiated in 2000.
Cussler sued Crusader, now known as Bristol Bay Productions, in 2004 claiming it reneged on a contract that gave him approval rights over the screenplay. Crusader later countersued.
Cussler has maintained the contract gave him sole and absolute rights over the screenplay; Crusader’s attorneys say the contract staggers Cussler’s rights from screenplay approval to a less-authoritative consulting role once filming began.
Cussler’s attorney, Bert Fields, argued earlier this week that jurors should examine the contract between the parties in which the author was given creative control. Fields said jurors shouldn’t be sidetracked by “sideshows and smokescreens.”
Cussler, 75, has been called the “Grandmaster of Adventure.” He has written 32 books, 19 of which feature Pitt.
Anschutz is one of the richest men in the United States. He co-owns the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and a company that operates Los Angeles’ Staples Center.
