Alan Dean Foster was in his late twenties when George Lucas, standing next to a model of the Millennium Falcon in a Southern California warehouse, met him to talk about writing the new adaptation of his upcoming movie “Star Wars.”
The original contract required an upfront payment of $ 7,500 until Mr. Lucas awarded Mr. Foster a 0.5% royalty on the sale which, according to Mr. Foster, now 74 years old, made several first payments. They arrived several times a year as the original 1977 blockbuster hit box office records and the novel he wrote sold over a million copies.
Then, in 2012, Walt Disney Co. Lucasfilm Ltd. – and the royalty controls stopped.
Now, Mr. Foster and other authors of Disney-bought franchises are in a heated dispute with Hollywood’s largest empire, which they say is refusing to pay royalties on book contracts that soak it up in the $ 4 billion Lucasfilm deal and other acquisitions. The amount at stake is miniscule for a company of Disney’s size, but important to the writers looking for it. While Disney has mined Lucasfilm for new films that collectively brought in nearly $ 6 billion at the worldwide box office, these writers say the company has delayed handling their complaints and punished them with checks rarely amounting to a few thousand dollars each.
Since Mr. Foster’s dispute was made public by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America association, other authors of books related to projects from Indiana Jones to “ Buffy the Vampire Slayer ” have brought up similar stories about royalty checks which stopped after Disney’s properties. In any case, Disney is in danger of alienating an obscure but vital tentacle from the franchises, as these novelties have helped build and maintain fan loyalty. Complications: The exact amount at stake is unknown, as sales and royalties for the books involved fluctuated tremendously over time.
A Disney spokesperson said, “We are carefully reviewing whether any royalty payments may have been missed as a result of acquisition integration and will take appropriate corrective action in that case.”
Well known to longtime Star Wars fans, Mr. Foster says Disney ignores the everyday players who help build intergenerational connections with beloved characters. He and his wife are both in poor health, and he said the royalty income could come in handy for medical expenses.
‘I’m not Steve Spielberg. I’m not Steve King. I don’t even have a name that starts with Steve, ”he said.
The dispute started in the summer of 2019, when the literary agent of Mr. Century Fox, the studio that Disney bought in 2019 as part of a $ 71.3 billion deal.
Mr. Foster and his agent then realized that the same thing had happened to his royalties on two Star Wars books after Disney bought Lucasfilm.
In response to questions about the “Alien” checks, a Disney attorney told Mr. Foster that the company had acquired the rights to these books, but not the obligations to pay royalties. But in the case of “ Alien, ” Ms. Hansen said, the rights to Mr. Foster’s novels had been reassigned several times, without interruption of royalty checks, before Disney bought Fox.
“Disney has bought a house with a mortgage on it. They want to continue to live in the house. They don’t want to pay the mortgage, ”Mr. Foster said.
The writers group says a similar pattern has emerged after other Disney acquisitions. At least half a dozen writers from a range of Disney properties have since said they are in this together, said Mary Robinette Kowal, president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Disney has begun to review the “Alien” case, but there’s a line of writers behind Mr. Foster waiting for a turn at the negotiating table. In all, Ms. Hansen estimates that her client alone had made more than $ 50,000 in royalties from the original Star Wars novel before the checks ended in 2012.
If Disney agrees to calculate the missing royalties, it faces a daunting task of tracking down sales spanning six years and, in the case of Mr. Foster alone, five novels published in dozens of international markets.
Donald Glut, a writer who wrote ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ from the 1980s, and James Kahn, who adapted the third film in the original trilogy ‘Return of the Jedi’, have both said they don’t miss out on royalty checks either.
If no resolution is reached, the writers association can take further action, Ms. Kowal said, including putting Disney on a list of publishers it tells its members to avoid. The term given to such designation: “Writer Beware.”
Write to Erich Schwartzel at [email protected]