Do authors have any say in movies based on their books?

By: Michelle, Nashville

A.B. Replies: Strap yourself into the La-Z-Boy for this one, because I'd hate to see this killer infonugget give you whiplash or perhaps make you choke on a piece of batter-fried ham. There are many people out there whose dreams and goals do not involve visits to soundstages or sojourns down a red carpet that has been anchored to the concrete with eight tons of silver duct tape. Really. Honest to God.

Many of those people are writers. John Grisham, official bard of the Action Lawyer, has had bunches of his esquire-intrigue books anointed with the blessed oil of filmdom, and he doesn't seem all that zazzed about it. In fact, Grisham has turned down trips to Hollywood and other perks for years. When Sydney Pollack invited him to a screening of The Firm in 1993, the author said no, citing Little League season or some other precious Hallmark thing.

Now, that's power.

Power coupled with a skillfully executed dose of erudite disdain. But even after winning that level of courtesy in the film industry, Grisham's power over big-screen adaptations was still limited. He didn't have any say-so over casting for The Pelican Brief, also released in 1993.

"Pelican Brief is the only book I've written with a star in mind," Grisham told Entertainment Weekly a while back. "Darby Shaw is a 24-year-old student with long red hair and long legs--and good-looking. That kind of narrows it down to Julia Roberts pretty quickly.

"After the book was published, she wrote me a letter and said, 'I loved the book, and I'd like to be in the movie.' But I had no control over casting back then."

Roberts got the role--through sheer luck--but Grisham had also said he didn't like Denzel Washington for the male lead. The actor got the part anyway.

Grisham eventually went on to snatch up more power with each successive movie adaptation, but most writers aren't so lucky. Typically, an option agreement gives the novelist some money and...that's about it.

"Sometimes the author gets to be aware of changes [in a script]," says Angela Agrusa, a Los Angeles-based intellectual property lawyer, "but not veto power. There's a lot less involvement than you would think."

The raging exception of the moment is, of course, J.K. Rowling, whose supply of Felix Felicis seems to know no bounds. Per Forbes, "Rowling shares creative control over the [Harry Potter] films and negotiated an undisclosed cut of the profits." In other words, as put to this B!tch by Tom Guida, partner in the IP practice at Baker & Hostetler, "she had approval on talent, the director, look and feel of the set, final script and the color of the feathers of the owls."

All that influence. And yet she lets Voldemort live and cause such havoc and be just such a bad, bad man. Absolute power--it sure does corrupt absolutely.