The new £25m (€37m) version stars Nicolas Cage as a highway patrolman who arrives on an island off the coast of Washington state to investigate a young girl’s disappearance.
It freely acknowledges its debt to the 1973 British movie that starred Edward Woodward as a policeman sent to a Scottish isle on a similar quest. The missing girl is even named Woodward by way of a tribute.
The credits say it is based on the screenplay written for the first film by the late Anthony Shaffer, one of Britain’s most accomplished literary twins. But his daughters have filed a complaint to the Law Society. They claim the rights to the original film were sold against their wishes for $55,000 (£29,000).
Shaffer, who also wrote the screenplays for Sleuth and Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy, died in 2001, aged 75. He filed a brief two-page will in Queensland, Australia, and lawyers have since charged more than £700,000 in fees trying to sort out his estate. It was complicated by the fact that he had a wife, an ex-wife and a mistress.
In the will, Shaffer asked that his daughters, Claudia and Cressida, should inherit his share in his company, Denouement. “I direct my executor to do all that is necessary in furtherance of this direction to have my daughters appointed as directors of the company,” he said.
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Peter Shaffer, his younger brother by five minutes and author of the plays Amadeus, Equus and The Royal Hunt of the Sun, was made executor. But according to family members, he was so upset by references in Anthony’s autobiography to Peter’s homosexuality that he granted power of attorney to Davenport Lyons, a British law firm.
The will did not specify what should happen to Anthony Shaffer’s literary rights but left the residue of his estate to Diane Cilento, his third wife, whom he met on the set of The Wicker Man. She left Sean Connery for Shaffer.
Claudia Shaffer, 42, the daughter of Shaffer’s second wife, said: “Our father always promised us his literary estate. It was the old warhorse that would keep us all going.
“I have even contacted a graphologist at Scotland Yard to ensure that the signature on the will is in his handwriting.
“Yet the lawyers appointed to run the estate have blocked us at every turn. They have spent £700,000 of the money in fees but say they cannot justify the cost to the estate of having a meeting with us.”
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She added: “Our legacy has been swallowed up in fees. The sale of the picture for $55,000 is the last straw. The lawyers have not done enough to protect or maximise my father’s estate. I sometimes wish it were the lawyers burning inside The Wicker Man.”
Leon Morgan, a senior partner at Davenport Lyons, said: “I have had an introductory note from the Law Society. I have no idea how seriously they will take it, but there is no concern on our part whatsoever.
“As far as we are concerned, the beneficiary is Diane Cilento, and her lawyers have been informed of everything.
“It has been one of the most problematic administrations of an estate that any of the lawyers concerned have ever seen.
We have 45 ring binders full of documents.
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“I have a lot of sympathy with Claudia, but there is no row over The Wicker Man. The turmoil is in her mind.
“Her father sold the rights to British Lion when the film was made in the 1970s. The makers of the new film wanted to do what is known as a quit claim, in which anyone who might have had a position in the original film is asked to sign off. We thought $55,000 was a good deal.”
A spokesman for Millennium Films, maker of the new version, said: “We don’t know anything about this.”