Maine author Tess Gerritsen has decided to drop the lawsuit against Warner Bros. in which she claimed she was owed millions for providing the story that became the Oscar-winning film “Gravity.”
Gerritsen’s lawsuit was dealt a blow June 12 when a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that it failed to show how Warner Bros. could be liable, since Gerritsen never had a contract with that company.
She sold the rights to her 1999 novel “Gravity” for $1 million to a division of New Line Productions, which later became a division of Warner Bros. Gerritsen contended that her contract with New Line Productions guaranteed her 2.5 percent of “net proceeds.” The film has grossed more than $700 million.
After the ruling June 12, Gerritsen’s lawyer, Glen Kulik, said he would review it and possibly file an amended complaint. But in a statement released Monday, titled “Why I’m Giving Up,” Gerritsen wrote that while her legal team wants to fight on, the decision to drop the lawsuit is “mine alone.”
She wrote that, based on the ruling, “I have no faith in the system or that my case will ever be heard by a jury. The brutal financial and emotional costs of continuing the fight for years to come, against adversaries who have unlimited resources and are willing to use them against me, and the unlikelihood that we will ever be allowed in this courtroom to present our evidence, have made me decide to end my efforts.”
Gerritsen wrote that her legal team was not allowed to present arguments in person or have access to corporate documents of Warner Bros. or New Line Productions. Gerritsen said her contact with New Line had a clause requiring any other company that acquired the rights to “Gravity” to fulfill the financial obligations to Gerritsen.
When production of “Gravity” began around 2011, Gerritsen had not been contacted by the studio and assumed the film was based on something other than her work.
The film is about a female medical engineer on her first space shuttle mission, when the shuttle is destroyed by debris. Gerritsen’s book is about a researcher on her first mission to a space station. A shuttle crashes.
Gerritsen, 62, has lived in Camden for more than 20 years and is a New York Times best-selling author of more than a dozen books. The TBS series “Rizzoli & Isles” is based on a series of books she wrote about a detective and a medical examiner who work together.
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