Miramax says British columnist failed to deliver book
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Miramax Film Corp. has sued British writer and columnist Allison Pearson for breach of contract for failing to deliver a promised novel.
The Oscar-winning film studio accuses Pearson, a regular columnist for Britain's Daily Mail newspaper, of accepting $700,000 five years ago in return for the rights for an unpublished book titled "I Think I Love You."
The suit, filed on Friday in Manhattan federal court, said although Pearson accepted the money in August 2003 under a two-year contract she failed to deliver the novel and ignored requests by Miramax since 2006 about the book's whereabouts.
Pearson was the subject of controversy in Britain in May when she suggested in an article that the Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson's daughter was overweight. She is the author of the 2002 novel "I Don't Know How She Does It."
Pearson, who the lawsuit said resides in Cambridge, England, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Miramax was founded by the U.S. film producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein who sold it to the Walt Disney Co. in 1993. Both left the company in 2005.
(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Patricia Reaney)
