Toronto — Sullivan Entertainment offered the heirs of Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery $150,000 for rights to all of the novelist's works, Montgomery's granddaughter testified Monday.
During her second and final day of testimony, Kate Macdonald Butler recalled a litany of proposals, counter-proposals and broken promises throughout the late 1990s, culminating with Sullivan Entertainment's offer to give Montgomery's heirs $150,000 for 22 of Montgomery's works.
“It was unacceptable,” Macdonald Butler said. “I was stunned.”
She also testified that Kevin Sullivan, president of Sullivan Entertainment and executive producer of two Green Gables films in 1985 and 1987, did not tell her a third movie was in the making.
“He never mentioned he was doing a third instalment in the series. We learned about it in the newspaper,” Macdonald Butler said.
Sullivan's lawyer, Tony Kelly, briefly cross-examined Macdonald Butler, trying to expose a lack of communication between the heirs and their lawyer, Marian Hebb.
In late 1998, Sullivan put forth the option of mediation and arbitration to settle the growing number of differences with the heirs. Macdonald Butler said she thought it was a good idea but added she was not entirely clear about how arbitration would work.
“Did you discuss the concept of arbitration with Ms. Hebb?” Kelly asked.
“Yes,” Macdonald Butler replied.
“Did you understand the process?”
“Somewhat.”
Macdonald Butler, along with her 88-year-old mother, Ruth Macdonald, cousin David Macdonald, Hebb and public relations firm Media Profile face a $55-million lawsuit for holding a July 6, 1999, news conference that Sullivan Entertainment alleges was libellous, thereby derailing its initial public offering and ruining its global expansion plans.
The defendants say they organized the event because Sullivan refused to give them profits from the two Green Gables films and “stonewalled” at least 40 requests throughout the 1990s for an audit. Sullivan insists the films did not make any money.
