How not to make movies

Great article in today's Los Angeles Times about the control author Clive Cussler had over the making of Sahara, from his novel.

The best line, of course, is from one of the writers hired to polish the doomed script:

James V. Hart (Steven Spielberg's "Hook" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Dracula") was paid about $600,000. He found Cussler difficult, but not unlike many novelists — protective of their material and unable to grasp the transition to cinema.

"I've worked with a lot of live authors," Hart testified. "The dead ones are easier to deal with."