Hadn't heard this before

[trinityvixen]

I did know about the lawsuit that might hold up The Watchmen movie, but I hadn't heard one little hitch in that until this NYT article:
In a summary of its position in Friday’s report, Warner said Fox “sat silently” as one of the producers of “Watchmen,” Lawrence Gordon, took the project “to studio after studio with Fox’s express knowledge.”

The basic story is that Fox bought the rights to the graphic novel, sat on it forever because it seemed an impossible movie to make, then let it go. It found a production company and money and director and writer over at Warner Brothers. They've all but made the movie (pricinple photography is done), and now Fox is screaming about the movie being stolen from them. Specifically, that some part of how they let their ownership of the property slip wasn't a total release and therefore they needed to be a) entirely bought off or b) involved in any production.

What's notable for me about that quote is that it seems very improbable, near impossible that Fox would have gone even as long as San Diego Comic Con 2008, where The Watchmen trailer and panels debuted without knowing that Warner was making a film based on this property. There's just no way. If the internet knew since way back when Zack Snyder was doing 300, Fox had to have known.

The fact that they let Warner sink a bajillion dollar into the thing and then went about legal action is incredibly bad form. It basically looks like Fox studio execs thought "Wow, this is going to be way too expensive to make, but it could be a really big hit if it gets made. Let's let some other studio make it and absorb the costs and then we'll sue them! We spend nothing, we get free money!" That's incredibly shit behavior. Of course, legally speaking, they're probably within their rights to do so. (I doubt they have to prove that they didn't know someone else was making a movie with their licensed property until now to win their case.) And Warner Bros. execs are fools for not being 100% certain they had all the legal ownership of this potential cash-cow nailed down. Still, shitty form, Fox. (I know, same old, same old, right?)

Comments

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, another reason to hate Fox. They wait until this "difficult" movie is made for them, then want all the monies? Fuck you, Fox.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's a fuckhole strategy. Unfortunately, it's probably legal and definitely profitable because WB will probably settle out of court.

[ahab99.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my understanding is that it's basically up to the legal department of the studio that decides to make the film to check the chain of ownership to make sure no one else has any rights left. And I'm sure Fox did do exactly what you said, because there's no money in suing a studio prematurely, before it has a product ready to go that will make lots of money. I'm not sure if bad faith can do something like decrease any damages or if it can be raised as some sort of affirmative defense, but basically I think WB didn't do the background work to make extra triple-sure that they were free to go forward.

Basically I expect they'll have to settle, 'cause WB won't want to delay the movie and Fox can't get any money if the movie gets stuffed in the can.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think that bad faith would come into play, but chances are good the difference wouldn't be as much if they settled out of court. It depends on what settlement costs versus court expenses and what chance the WB thinks it has to win the suit. If it's 50/50, they're probably better off settling. It entirely depends on things that aren't predictable here--you don't know what settlement Fox would ask for; whether the case will be dismissed entirely; or if the movie will even make any money.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

As has been widely discussed on the internets, there is no chance in hell that this lawsuit is going to at all in any way ever delay Watchmen or have any effect whatsoever on its March 6th release date. All that will happen is that Fox will make some money off of the movie, by WB paying them off, making them partner on the movie, giving them back end, or whatever, all of which mean the movie has to come out for Fox to profit.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I never thought it would delay the movie. Warner won't let it. The early slot is so enviable, and with Harry Potter pushed back from November, there will be fewer "safe" debut weekends in the summer. Warner needs to open the film when they said they would.

Fox is using this to make the negotiations about a settlement (or, you know, trial, maybe) more time-constrained. It doesn't hurt them at all if the movie's delayed, they're still going to profit off this whether it comes a month or a year later. The time pressure is exclusive to Warner Bros. which only helps Fox.

Fox people are still jackholes for waiting this long, even if this works. (Which it probably will.)

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

That isn't true. If Fox fought hard enough, they could in fact get the movie delayed, Warner Bros. would and does not have any control to stop them other than fighting back. The movie being delayed is definitely absolutely 100% within the realm of physical possibility, and the only people with the power to MAKE it happen it Fox (all WB can do is defend against it).

But it WOULD hurt Fox if the movie is delayed, because they don't want a standard out-of-court settlement on what could be one of the biggest blockbusters of 2009, what they want is to become a profit-sharing partner on the movie, to pick up some points in the movie's back end, which means they DO want the movie to come out, and so they won't be attempting to stop it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

There's almost no way Fox can fight hard enough to delay the film. I understand fine why they wouldn't want to, but this isn't a large or even very complicated case. I wouldn't expect any trial to take more than a month. There's not yet a cease-and-desist order on working on the film, so Snyder et al. can finish it without being affected. They just can't release it. (I'm sure Fox is all for them working on it, too, which is why no C-a-D.)

Could the lawsuit alone delay the start date? Sure. Will it? No. The only way to make this last longer in court is for Fox to monkey around with lawyers and evidence and request constant stays or leaves or rests or whatever they call it. Warner Brothers can then hit them back and call their shenanigans as highly suspicious, to which a judge might be sympathetic since it would be obvious that the only reason Fox would drag its feet is to cost WB money. (That's why they've waited this long to put forth the lawsuit. They've had ample time to get evidence.) I don't think most judges--or juries, if they have one--would be very sympathetic to Fox if it then tried to delay things further.

But I guess we'll have to see.

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

It's bad form but good business. Fox can either make a lot of money for nothing, seriously wound a major rival, or both. And if they really didn't sign off completely, it is carelessness on the part of both Warner and Gordon, so they do have a case. Or at least enough of one to tie this up in court as long as they like, and/or get a significant settlement.

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

QFT.

If Warner didn't do their due diligence, that's their screw-up, not Fox's.

It doesn't make it any less a dick move on Fox's part, but still...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Right, I know. I wonder if this niggling, tenuous claim to the property which mostly seemed free to the next available home is as strong as Fox thinks. They must think it's strong or they wouldn't push the lawsuit. I wonder also if the WB knew and didn't think it would hold up (they already tried to have the case outright dismissed) and went ahead anyway. If the latter is true, well, they took their chances and I say let 'em burn for it. If not, well, Fox are still cocks, but they've got the law on their side.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'd need to go back over the original articles about the lawsuit to figure out what it was, exactly, that Fox retained with Watchmen that makes the WB a bunch of thieves for making the movie. Chances are good that it is some minor clause put in exclusively to protect studios from ever losing properties entirely and to provide some back-end measure of profit generation in a system that is basically a giant suck hole of money.

The Hollywood system of making movies from previously existing works is so fucked anyway, I bet I wouldn't be able to decipher the information if I got it, though.

And yeah, sure it's great business for Fox, but it makes them look like total dicks. As movies get more and more expensive, it's entirely possible you'll see more studios having to collaborate to fund them (as was done on Titanic with, funnily enough, Fox as one of the partners). If that's the way things move, this could royally screw Fox. Of course, they've never seen the bigger picture on things costing/gaining them money immediately versus over time. They've lost a bucketload of cash on flops this summer and are ready to recoup those losses out of the WB's ass. The WB didn't cover themselves well enough, true, but Fox is still being jerkholes.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

This is not related to the lawsuit, but I was amused to read on a blog prior to the release of Meet Dave that since the release of The Simpsons Movie, none of the 18 previous movies they'd released had gotten a Fresh on the Tomatometer, and that was before Space Chimps, Mirrors, The Rocker, and Babylon A.D. I doubt Max Payne, Australia and The Day the Earth Stood Still are going to turn things around on that front either. Perhaps getting their name on a good film will be worth it for them, regardless of how much of their cred they have to destroy to get it (not that they have any at the moment, given that on top of all of those critical failures, they have Matthieu Kassovitz complaining openly in the press about how they slaughtered 70 minutes of Babylon A.D. to get a PG-13).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they haven't had a hit in ages, and they are looking at a potential disaster in the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still or whatever their stupid remake is. They have exactly one film in the pipeline that's guaranteed to make them the money that Watchmen could potentially make, and that's the Wolverine spin-off. They know that their audience for that won't care if they put the kibosh on Watchmen because a) the audiences don't care about this shit, and b) they might actually like the idea of the movie never coming out or being a target of negative publicity. (Loads of comic fans are uncertain about the movie.)

As for Babylon AD and that kerfuffle, that sort of thing really only gets known to movie buffs who follow the gossip. What Fox's real legacy is the horrible movies they've released so far this year. That's what people remember (if they do). They could really shore up their credibility a lot easier by making their own movies better.

(I would be sad if Watchmen didn't do well or wasn't good, but it would serve Fox right if it tanked and they didn't even have stolen good movies.)

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

I suspect you're right about it being a minor clause--what I'd heard was that it simply wasn't handled properly and so the process was not 100% official. Probably only an IP lawyer could figure out the details, though. And no, Fox has demonstrated time and again over the past five or six years that they don't care about looking like jerks--or about being jerks.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It amazes me how poor their reputation is. But it is rather poor, notoriously so, especially among the specific subset of entertainment consumers who would be following news on The Watchmen rather closely. (i.e. geeks) They have demonstrated time and again that they're not willing to do the sort of ABC/NBC thing with keeping a show alive until it finds its audience--they're an instant-hit-only crowd. Which is why they have had hardly any new shows worth a damn since 24, ratings-wise. (Things like Prison Break and House do good, but not great, numbers.)

Unfortunately, they don't have to have just about any hits on TV because of the unstoppable juggernaut of American Idol. Too bad for them that they can't just coast on some untiring franchise with their movies. So they resort to this shit.