Lawsuit over "Sahara" verdict: Cussler must pay $5 million to producer

[Plot Device]

Cussler was blamed for film's failure due to his constant interference, including his demand that he be allowed to approve/reject all scriptings of his story.

From the Hollywood Reporter:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i930fb2ee6df72cde0fb5525442b16f1f?imw=Y


One of the things that burns me up about this whole fiasco is that it has REMINDED Hollywood that it's usually a bad idea to allow the writer onto the set. Douglas Adams was also a notorious obstacle to the decades-long effort to try and translate The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy to the silver screen, and it wasn't until after Adams died that they were finally able to get on with the job without his ridiculous interference. So in the future, we can expect that writers will be even more shunned during production than they already are.

And below are other threads from around these boards (none from this sub-board though):
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64705


Older threads:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55262&highlight=cussler
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54008&highlight=cussler
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54021&highlight=cussler

[dpaterso]

Despite Cussler's "losing" this lawsuit, it's hard to believe any of the various stories/news articles.

If Cussler was interfering so much and demanding story control, how come the characters in the movie bore no similarity whatsoever to the lead characters that have appeared in his numerous and dare I say fun adventure novels for decades? I think it's more likely his objections stemmed from this obvious fact.

Meh, who cares, Sahara was a turkey of a movie, what's done is done.

-Derek

[BoyBlog]

Someone had to be blamed for this horrible movie. Hahaha.
How come no one complains when JKR comes to the HP sets?

[Plot Device]

If Cussler was interfering so much and demanding story control, how come the characters in the movie bore no similarity whatsoever to the lead characters that have appeared in his numerous and dare I say fun adventure novels for decades?

I think they got so sick of his many rejections that they just decided to go behind his back and do a script without his approval anyway. At least I think that's how I read the news reports.

[icerose]

Someone had to be blamed for this horrible movie. Hahaha.
How come no one complains when JKR comes to the HP sets?

They don't complain because her movies make money. Lots and lots of money.

[Jamesaritchie]

My guess is that it's waaay too early to say what Cussler will have to pay.