UPDATE: On March 4. 2010, a California appeals court has overturned the $5 million ruling against Clive Cussler, paving the way for a do-over in the lengthy legal battle.
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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, suggesting that 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.
"I think that Cussler is the winner," his attorney, Bertram Fields, told reporters after the verdict was announced. "If the judge upholds what the jury has done, he gets a net gain of $3 million." (Minus Fields' fee, of course.)
"I'm relieved that it's over, and now we can go home," Cussler said, accompanied by his fiancé Janet Horvath.
Crusader also saw the bright side, of course, with attorney Marvin Putnam calling it a "massive" win for his client.
"It's a massive vindication not only for Crusader and all the people who made the film, but for the industry as a whole," Putnam said.
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 for more than $110 million in damages 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 Matthew 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."
UPDATE: On March 9, 2009, Cussler was ordered to pay $13.9 million in attorneys' fees to Crusader Entertainment, a portion of the $18 million Crusader had sued for. "Obviously, this will be appealed," Fields said.