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This.

Jan 3rd, 2009
by Robert N. Lee.

I've seen a lot of "OMG FUK FOX" stuff over the Watchmen lawsuit lately, of which this is an actually funny example that should not be considered typical.

So I meant to type something up in response and it turns out somebody beat me to it. Fox may kind of suck as a studio, lately, and given their recent track record, concern that if they get their mitts on the movie they'll cut it down to an hour and a half worth of PG is legitimate. However, they're not in the wrong for suing over this project and it isn't evil that they're prevailing. Warners and Lawrence Gordon royally fucked up or maybe just thought they could away with this, because as the linked blog piece points out, this happpens all the time with projects that float like this. Studios let them go with stipulations that they'll get their development costs and something nice for themselves back if another studio makes the movie eventually. Warners didn't have any problem taking care of Paramount for their previous attempts to make Watchmen, they just decided they didn't need to do that for Fox, and boy howdy, were they wrong.

I just hope everybody can agree on whatever massive payout is needed, here, so the movie gets released without lengthy court delays, which pretty much relies on Warners getting over being offended that they got caught. They did, and this means to some degree they just made a very expensive expected blockbuster for Fox, which company will reap massive profit for very little effort, years ago. Yeah well, that's what happens you ignore obligations like that, you just make them bigger.

Anyway, if you're going to be mad at a company, here, be mad at Warners - this is their mess, not Fox's. There'll be plenty of time to get mad at Fox if they try to turn the movie into League of Extraordinary Gentlemen II.

Post to Twitter Tweedle me deedles.

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  • I haven't been following this legal debacle, but that Cracked article is hilarious. What I cannot understand is why WB would go ahead and make the film when Fox had the rights? Who was out taking a whiz on this one? It seems to me that the decision must've been entirely witting. Obviously, the wake of such a decision is a colossal legal and financial clusterfuck, but I've gotta say... I'm not crying for anyone. I'd be involved with this production for the oppotunity alone. Feed me, and give me some shelter. That's all I'd ask.


    There'll be plenty of time to get mad at Fox if they try to turn the movie into League of Extraordinary Gentlemen II


    Yes, at that point Fox can eat all the dicks and choke on them too.

  • Well, DC Comics is a Warner Brother's company and is notorious for botching rights issues. Usually by pissing off talent with shenanigans, but in other ways as well. I used to know a low level DC exec who told me about how they didn't bother to secure the film rights to the Road to Perdition graphic novel, because it was part of an imprint they considered a commercial washout.


    They probably thought they could brazen it out as they own the rights book. Surprise!

  • DC Comics is a Warner Brother's company and is notorious for botching rights issues.


    Ah, so it makes a weird sort of circular sense after all. Thanks for educating me. Still, DC must've sold the film rights to Fox some twenty-odd years ago? You'd think there'd be some record, or degree of awareness, at DC, about the sale of those film rights? I don't know what US copyright law says (probably that Fox can sit on this for ninety-five years), but this case of Fox-sitting-on-Watchmen presents a strong argument for working expiration dates into such sales agreements. I guess such ideas were beyond those deft IP-wranglers, Botchy McBrainfart and friends, at DC twenty years ago.

  • vee_ecks

    Despite the shared parent company, DC doesn't have anything to do with the current mess, and Warners and Lawrence Gordon appear to have known about the obligations they were shirking. This is just a unusually large-scale regular movie business legal mess.


    I suppose thinking "Hey, our parent company's other subsidiary published the comic" could have added to chutzpah, here.

  • vee_ecks

    What I cannot understand is why WB would go ahead and make the film when Fox had the rights?


    Fox didn't have the rights - they let Gordon shop the project around but were supposed to be considered in any final deal. Their involvement was relatively minor and a while back, so had this all been handled properly, their reward would likely have been smaller. It wasn't, so they're entitled to demand a lot more in court. So the court is saying they get NA distribution rights, which sucks ass for Warners, because they gave Paramount international distribution to pay it off for *its* investment in Watchmen when it tried to make the movie. These kinds of riders happen in these situations.


    A possible reason for trying to weasel around on this is that Warners simply didn't want Fox taking the movie. There seems to be some kind of first refusal thing at partial issue, here, and Warners had Zack Snyder fresh off 300, saying he wanted to do The Unfilmable Superhero Movie with them. Maybe they figured Fox's interest was so small, any possible legal repercussions would be overwhelmed by profit.


    If so, whoops.

  • vee_ecks

    I know. I'm dying.


    And yeah, people keep pouting about how late in the game Fox mad this legal move - they filed suit almost a year ago, for god's sake.

  • yawn!

  • Thanks for posting this. Was just saying something much the same over lunch. Fanboy panic, it's an ugly thing.

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