Now, the author has his own ideas about it, as do I. [2] A typical answer for the Lucas question is that the author's mental image of Lucas looks a lot like Pat Riley, current coach of the Miami Heat basketball team, as he was twenty years or so ago. He had the face, the build, and — importantly — the suits. But Riley isn't an actor, and he's aged twenty years since his prime "Looks like Lucas" days, so it's not going to happen.

This type of intellectual exercise is fine. Sure, it might not be possible to cast a young Clint Eastwood [3] anymore — the young Clint Eastwood grew into the modern-day Clint Eastwood — but the casting game can be fun, and is usually harmless. [4]

But then there are people who write in making demands. They'll say that some actor must be cast as Virgil, [5] and the author needs to do that ASAP. Or they'll complain that Mark Harmon should never have been cast as Lucas, [6] and the author should be ashamed. At this point it's not fun. And so I have to explain how movie rights work with respect to authors. [7]

And that is the simple truth of it: when an author sells the movie rights for a book, he or she loses any and all control they might have. [9] They don't have any say over the screenwriting. They don't have any say over the casting. They don't have any say over who will direct, or where it will be shot, or how faithful the adaptation will be to the book, or how much money will be spent. Once the author signs the contract, the rights are gone. [10]

And sometimes it's more complicated, and involves what I call the James Bond clause. [11] The character of James Bond is owned by one particular company, so nobody else can make a James Bond movie. [12] Oh, sure, other companies could make a James Bond -like movie — that happens every so often — but they can't use the character, because the rights to the character are already owned.

For the Prey series, the author did not individually sell the rights to Mind Prey and then later Certain Prey. No. He sold the rights for Rules of Prey — just that one, since there were no others yet — way back in 1990, but those rights included a James Bond clause. The rights included exclusive license for the Lucas Davenport character in all books as yet written, and all yet to be written.

And every original character that appears in that book.

And every original character that appears in any book Lucas is in. [13]

And every book that those original characters appear in.

And it keeps chaining out like that, potentially forever. So for the Prey series, he sold the rights back in 1990 for one book, but that was enough to include... everything.

Lucas is in every Prey book, so the rights to every book are included in the original contract. So, yes, the rights to Field of Prey, which isn't even out yet, were sold way back in 1990.

Kidd appears in Eyes of Prey, and so the rights to the Kidd novels are included.

Virgil Flowers is introduced in the seventeenth Prey novel, and so all of his books are included in the contract as well.

And while people may say that it's not fair to the authors, or that the authors shouldn't sell out like this, the truth is that this is how it's done all the time. [14] This is how Hollywood works. If you're an author, you do not get to pick and choose anything about a potential production. You sell the rights to a company you probably don't know anything about and hope that they get it right. [15] Sometimes they do. [16] Sometimes they don't. [17] But you won't know until long after you've sold those rights.

If you're an author, there really is no such thing as waiting for the right company to come along. You're always in the dark about how they'll handle it. You either never sell the rights to anyone, ever, or you sell them blindly and hope for the best. [18] And that's the end of it.