I’m not at all interested in the so-called ‘lives’ of celebrities, but I do like learning about the sheer mechanics of making films, including the financial stuff. Per that:
The convoluted lawsuits following the bombing of the film Sahara (background here) have wrapped with a Solomon-esque split decision. The court found that author Cliver Cussler had misrepresented the popularity of his long-running Dirk Pitt action series (also the basis of the horribly lame megabomb Raise the Titanic!, the film that largely killed the British film industry), and awarded the film company Crusader Entertainment $5,000,000. However, this is more than offset by the $8.5 million Crusader was found to owe Cussler for the rights to a second book, which obviously will not be hitting the screens any time soon. Even aside from the sheer economic folly represented by the last two Cussler films, the guy sounds like an ass to work with, so I hope he isn’t expecting anyone else to option one of his novels any time soon.
