Lawyers watching the “Watchmen”
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A judge is letting 20th Century Fox’s lawsuit over Warner Bros.’ right to make the movie version of “Watchmen” go forward, Variety is reporting.
Federal Judge Gary Allen Feess denied Warner Bros.’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
If rulings continue to go Fox’s way, the studio could wind up sharing Warner Bros.’ profits from the highly anticipated film adaptation of the graphic novel. That, of course, would mean Warner Bros. makes less money, a prospect that studio likely finds quite distasteful.
But surely not as distasteful as this notion: Fox’s legal team says the studio doesn’t want the money, according to Variety. Instead, Fox’s suits say they want to keep Zack Snyder’s film from being released at all.
Yeah, that ought to thrill the Comic-Con crowd.
When you consider that many movie versions of “Watchmen” have been in development since Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ watershed graphic novel came out in 1986-87, it isn’t surprising that there’s a lawsuit. With such high-profile material that so many people have worked on, legal tussling was practically inevitable.
The basic premise of the suit, which Fox filed in February, is that it never turned over the rights to “Watchmen” to clear the way for Warner Bros.’ movie.
Variety offered this quote from a statement issued by Warner Bros.: “The court’s ruling simply means that the parties will engage in discovery and proceed with the litigation. The judge did not opine at all on the merits other than to conclude that Fox satisfied the pleading requirements. We respectfully disagree with Fox’s position and do not believe they have any rights in and to this project.”
The judge has asked for a speedy discovery process, since the film has already wrapped and has a release date, not to mention a sweet trailer and hordes of salivating fans.
Snyder started filming “Watchmen” in September with a cast including Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode and Jackie Earle Haley. Release is set for March 6, 2009. (That’s considered a lucky slot for Snyder, whose hit “300″ came out the first weekend of March 2007.).
Variety quotes a statement from Fox that says in part: ”We will be asking the court to enforce Fox’s copyright interests in ‘The Watchmen’ and enjoin the release of the Warner Bros. film and any related ‘Watchmen’ media that violate our copyright interests in that property.”
The real surprise in all of this lawyering up is that Fox would rather see the film die a bloody-smiley face death than to make what’s anticipated to be some serious box office coin.
Of course, that’s also probably not true. Movie studios are all about the box office coin, and Fox is probably just playing hardball to make sure they get a big, fat cut.
There’s no percentage in it for Fox to see the movie die. Why spend more money making a movie (Variety says Fox spent more than $1 million developing ”Watchmen”) when you can sit back and get a cut of someone else’s version, especially one that already has good buzz and the blessings of the Comic-Con crowd.
At any rate, the studios have until next March to wrangle over it, so I’m not going to worry about it unless they’re still fussing in Februrary.
In the meantime, check out Matt Price’s Nerdage, where he’s got a few new images from “Watchmen.”
-BAM
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Comments
Surely they are not trying to convince us that they care more about who makes a movie and its relative quality than how much money they make! This is Hollywood we’re talking about here. If there’s one thing they’ve demonstrated over the last few decades, it’s that cash is king.
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