Fox has filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. over the rights to produce and distribute a film based on Watchmen.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox claims to hold the exclusive copyrights and contract rights to Watchmen, and seeks to prevent Warner Bros. from moving forward with the movie. The lawsuit also seeks unspecified damages.
Watchmen is scheduled for release next year.
Fox claims that between 1986 and 1990 it acquired all movie rights to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ DC Comics series. According to the lawsuit, in 1991 Fox assigned some rights to Largo International, which later dismantled and transferred those rights to producer Lawrence Gordon. Gordon, in turn, agreed to pay a buy-out price to Fox if he ever entered into a deal with a third party.
After stops at Universal and Paramount, Watchmen ended up at Warner Bros. But Fox claims than neither Gordon nor Warner Bros. has paid the required fee or acquired the necessary rights.
Developing, I’m sure …
February 12th, 2008 at 8:52 am
a bit too far advanced to be starting this so late.
February 12th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Lame.
Is it possible for a Moore film to be made without some controversy?
February 12th, 2008 at 9:22 am
I’m sure they’ll find a way to rope Moore into all this, further souring his attitude towards film. Good job, guys.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Ah well… another ordinary day in Hollywood.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:39 am
If they could untangle the Spider-Man movies rights (once claimed by three different outfits at the same time) they can fix this.
February 12th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I don’t know, these two (Fox and Warner) are still having handbags over who owns the 60’s Batman TV show, meaning neither a VHS nor DVD release…I’m more worried about that than whether Watchmen will see the light of day. The comic was perfect, without a further need to be somehow validated through being filmed by an average director.
February 12th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
The part that seems odd is that Fox waited so long to make this claim.
I’m guessing they timed it this way on purpose. WB has been trying to make a Watchmen movie for years. Fox probably knew about it the whole time and held off doing anything until now. If they’d stepped in earlier, WB might just have shut the project down, which wouldn’t do Fox any good since they don’t actually intend to use the rights. By waiting until the movie is too far along to scrap, Fox is probably hoping that WB will just roll over and give them some money to go away.
February 12th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
With millions already invested in the production, seems likely Fox will have their rights bought off, or the two studios will do a joint release, which has happened many times in the past for expensive productions - with the caveat that usually those deals are put in place prior to production beginning. Still, I can’t see WB scrapping the film altogther, particularly since filming is nearly wrapped.
As for the timing, it’s merely a case of Fox’s legal department going through the motions to find out if they had a case for a suit. With millions at stake, they probably wanted all their ducks in a row first.
February 12th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I personally suspect that Alan Moore, if he gets wind off this will have to surpress the urge to bolt out onto the street yelling “Told you! Bloody TOLD YOU!”
February 12th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
This is best news I’ve heard about the movie so far.