Jay Anson

Okay, let's get into the people that made this movie, 'cause people make movies, and the people that made this movie are...

It was directed by Stuart Rosenberg, and the screenplay by Sanders Stern, and it was based on the book by Jay Anson.

Also, IMDb lists, uh, George and Kathy Lutz as uncredited writers.

Oh.

Immediately, they sent him to Tam Mossman, an editor who'd worked on some books by the medium Jane Roberts, with titles like The Nature of Personal Reality and Psychic Politics.

Mossman immediately thought of a freelance writer he knew named Jay Anson, who worked as a scriptwriter for the Professional Films Company, which made behind-the-scenes documentaries for motion pictures, you know, those making-of featurettes.

And Jay Anson had written one for The Exorcist.

Mossman told Anson he should meet the Lutzes.

Anson did, and they told him what Anson described as a, quote, one hell of a ghost story.

people all fighting to have their picture taken in front of the house and here we were trying to have a lovely quiet Sunday afternoon together and And this insanity was out there.

Then, word of an upcoming book began to filter out.

Its title? The Amityville Horror, A True Story, by Jay Anson.

Now, the Lutzes, they never returned home.

Their stuff was sold at auction, and an author named Jay Anson turned the Lutzes' story into the novel The Amityville Horror in 1977.

It was an instant bestseller, and overnight turned the Warrens into celebrities.

Today, it's sold over 10 million copies.

William the attorney met with the Lutz family after they already lived in the Amityville home.

The Lutz family told William that they wanted to create like this big elaborate story about their home being haunted to like make money.

So they invited Jay Anson, the man who would eventually write the famous Amityville Horror novel.

They called him up, they had dinner together.

Something was in that house with them.

The Lutz family story became the basis for Jay Anson's 1977 book, which went on to sell more than six and a half million copies.

And that book became the 1979 film that most people picture the second they hear the word Amityville.

Here's something worth clearing up, though, because it trips a lot of people up here.

That's a conversation for a different day.

I also read The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson.

Obviously, this is what the movies are based off of.

This wasn't good.

Yeah, you're bullshit.

So the Lutz family made at least $100,000 from a book deal, possibly up to $300,000, which according to William Weber, Ronald DeFeo Jr.'s defense lawyer, was conceived over many bottles of wine with Jay Anson and the Lutzes.

It is a great movie.

Get out! From 1975, directed by Stuart Rosenberg, written, or rewritten, by Sandor Stern, featuring James Brolin and Margot Kidder.

The Warrens concluded that the house contained powerful malevolent forces.

The account became the basis for Jay Anson's 1977 book, The Amityville Horror, and then for an enormously successful succession of films.

Amityville gave the Warrens a national platform.

It also became one of the most disputed paranormal stories in American history.

So, here we are.

So, Jay Anson's The Amityville Horror, A True Story was published in September 1977.

It sold more than 10 million copies.

The 1979 film made roughly $86 million on a budget under five.

He said Kathy Lutz then built it into her account.

Weber had offered the Lutz as a book deal at 12% of profits.

They went with Jay Anson's arrangement instead at 50%.

Weber sued them for breach of contract and fraud.