Anschutz blames Cussler for $105 million film flop
By Glenn F. Bunting
Times Staff Writer
2:18 PM PST, February 1, 2007
Attorneys for Philip Anschutz allege as part of a lawsuit going to trial this week that author Clive Cussler duped the Denver industrialist into paying $10 million for film rights to the adventure novel "Sahara" by flagrantly inflating his book sales to more than 100 million copies.
"Cussler and his agent had gotten away with these numbers for years," said Alan Rader, Anschutz's lawyer. "It was a lie and it doomed the movie."
The claim is "ridiculous," Cussler said this morning outside a Los Angeles Superior Court room. "They wanted the book. They solicited us."
The allegations surfaced at the start of a trial that seeks to settle a long-running dispute over who is responsible for Anschutz's company losing $105 million on "Sahara," the 2005 action movie starring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz.
The trial, which includes claims of sabotage, fraud, profligate spending and racism, is expected to provide a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the often mysterious world of moviemaking. Lawyers are expected to finish picking a jury today and begin opening arguments Friday.
Among those on the witness list are Anschutz, the secretive, 67-year-old multibillionaire who shuns publicity; former Paramount Pictures Chairwoman Sherry Lansing; Breck Eisner, the son of the former Walt Disney Co. chairman; McConaughey, who also served as executive producer, and Cussler, the 75-year-old bestselling author.
Cussler initially sued Anschutz's Crusader Entertainment in 2004, charging that producers reneged on a contract that gave the author extraordinary approval rights over the screenplay. Anschutz countersued, alleging that Cussler deliberately torpedoed the film through his repeated attempts to write his own script, all of which were rejected by the producers. Both sides are seeking millions of dollars in damages.
In court papers, Anschutz's attorneys claim that Cussler "perpetrated a massive fraud" to secure an "unprecedented" $10-million per book contractual agreement during negotiations with Anschutz in 2000.
"The essence of Cussler's fraud was simple: He lied about how many books he had sold to induce Crusader to enter the Agreement," the documents state.
Cussler said his reported book sales are generated by his publisher. "They don't come from me," he said. "I don't have the foggiest idea."
The website of Simon & Schuster states that Cussler "is acclaimed worldwide as the Grandmaster of Adventure, a title richly deserved given that there are nearly 100 million copies of his best-selling Dirk Pitt novels in print."
Putnam Adult, Cussler's current publisher, has reported on its website that the author has sold "more than 125 million books," including 19 consecutive titles on the New York Times fiction bestsellers list.
And in a sworn declaration submitted Nov. 29, Cussler stated that "over one hundred million copies [of his Pitt novels] have been sold."
These figures place Cussler in the same stratosphere as authors Michael Crichton, James Patterson and Anne Rice.
But a review of more than 14,000 pages of royalty reports and accounting records found that the number of Cussler novels sold is closer to about 35 million, according to Anschutz's lawyers.
The audit, performed by the Los Angeles litigation consulting firm of Freeman & Mills was arranged by Anschutz's lawyers. The review took more than 350 hours and cost about $75,000, court records show.
Cussler's attorney, Bertram Fields, called the claim "hogwash." He said in an interview that while the precise number is "not computable," he will demonstrate during the trial that Cussler has sold more than 100 million books during his lifetime.
The estimate cited by Anschutz's attorneys does not rely on sales records of all of Cussler's 32 books, Fields said.
"They are pulling these numbers out of thin air," Fields said. "They made up this claim because they have no answers to Mr. Cussler's lawsuit."
Anschutz stated in deposition testimony that he was a fan of Cussler's Pitt novels and saw an opportunity to create a hit franchise similar to the Indiana Jones series. He said he agreed to pay an exorbitant asking price for the rights to "Sahara" based on assurances from Cussler that the author had a built-in audience of more than 100 million potential moviegoers.
"This deal would never have happened if Cussler and his agent had told the truth about the number of books sold," Rader said.
Cussler has denied giving Anschutz any such assurances.
If Anschutz was paying for a fan base, Fields said, the number of potential moviegoers far exceeds 100 million.
"You are talking about 32 books in 40 languages in several versions — trade, softcover, hardcover, mass market paperback, book clubs, books on tape — in 100 countries. That's not even talking about the sales of used books."
