PHILIP Anschutz made his first big splash in Hollywood five years ago when he cut a deal considered outlandish even by movie industry standards.
The Denver industrialist not only agreed to pay $10 million per book for rights to the best-selling Dirk Pitt adventure novels, he gave author Clive Cussler extraordinary creative control over "Sahara," the movie starring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz.
Cussler had final say over the director and lead actors (he boasted of turning down Tom Cruise for being too short) as well as wide discretion over the script (he disparaged writers as "hacks.")
By ceding so much authority to a novelist, Anschutz broke a fundamental rule in the film business: Keep the author out of the screenwriting process. Now Anschutz finds himself cast in a movie mogul's nightmare.
He has lost about $105 million to date on "Sahara," was forced to abandon plans for several Dirk Pitt sequels and is fighting one of Hollywood's most contentious lawsuits since humorist Art Buchwald battled Paramount Pictures over breach-of-contract charges. A jury trial is scheduled next month in Los Angeles.
Thousands of pages of legal documents -- including transcripts of sworn depositions, confidential memos and internal e-mails -- show exasperated studio executives, producers and directors scheming and back-stabbing over the $145-million production.
Cussler initially sued Anschutz's company, Crusader Entertainment, claiming producers reneged on a contract that awarded him "sole and absolute" approval rights.
"They deceived me right from the beginning," Cussler testified. "They kept lying to me ... and I just got fed up with it."
Anschutz declined to be interviewed. But in his countersuit, he alleged that Cussler sought to blackmail his film company by withholding consent over the script unless it agreed to use the novelist's own screenplay. The multibillionaire also has accused Cussler of inflating the number of Pitt books sold and slandering the movie before its April 2005 release.
"It is the height of arrogance for Cussler to take $10 million to make a movie and then torpedo the franchise," said Alan Rader, Anschutz's attorney.
Anschutz also alleges that Cussler made derogatory remarks about blacks and Jews while exercising his approvals.
Cussler has denied the accusations. His lawyer, Bertram Fields, said that Anschutz and his attorneys with the firm of O'Melveny & Myers are seeking to portray his client as a "crazed racist and anti-Semite" because they cannot win the case on the merits.
