Disney has been accused of failing to pay royalties to the acclaimed author Alan Dean Foster for his bestselling novelisations of films including
Star Wars and Alien, in a fight over copyright that is being described as unprecedented and grotesque.
Foster was approached by George Lucas to write a novelisation of Star Wars: A New Hope, which was published at the end of 1976, shortly before the film was released. Foster alleges that when Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, it bought the rights to the novel as well as the first Star Wars sequel novel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, published in 1978. Disney’s acquisition of
20th Century Fox in 2019 meant it also acquired the rights to Foster’s novelisations of Alien, Aliens and Alien 3. But the science-fiction author said Disney had not paid him royalties on the books, all of which are still in print and earning money for the media giant.
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Foster said his wife has “serious medical issues” and that he was diagnosed with an advanced form of cancer in 2016.
