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

[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.