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Watchmen

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Just off of Yahoo:

 

Doomsday for Watchmen? Josh Grossberg

Tue Aug 19, 10:46 AM ET

 

Los Angeles (E! Online) - Who will watch Watchmen? Nobody, if 20th Century Fox gets its way.

 

After a major court victory, the studio has announced a bid to block the release of Warner Bros.' anticipated adaptation of the seminal graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

 

Fox originally tried to develop the project more than a decade ago, but didn't manage to get the film off the drawing board. The studio claims Warners never properly acquired the rights to Watchmen, and, in a major twist, instead of seeking a share of the would-be blockbuster's box-office gross, Fox is seeking to kill the flick entirely before it unspools in theaters March 6.

 

Cue the agonized cries of fanboys everywhere.

 

A federal judge in Los Angeles agreed with Fox lawyers that there's enough evidence to keep the lawsuit going forward—and keep the film's release in limbo.

 

Directed by 300 helmer Zack Snyder, Watchmen stars Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Billy Crudup and Jackie Earle Haley as a band of former superheroes who find themselves reclassified as criminal vigilantes in an alternate universe circa 1985. As an unknown assassin begins to hunt them down, the heroes try to unravel a conspiracy and thwart a nuclear war.

 

The film's trailer wowed Comic-Con attendees last month, stirring big buzz for a film that many thought would never get made.

 

Per its complaint, Fox traces its distribution rights through a series of complex legal agreements that began in 1991, when the studio teamed up with veteran producer Larry Gordon to develop the DC Comics graphic novel.

 

The project stalled and Gordon went packing, leaving Fox, not Gordon, in control of the property, per the suit.

 

But Gordon resurfaced in 2006 and inked a deal with Warners to try to relaunch Watchmen.

 

In siding with Fox, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allen Fees said Warners' legal camp failed to show that Gordon still had a stake in the project.

 

"Warner Bros.' production and anticipated release of Watchmen motion picture violates 20th Century Fox's long-standing motion picture rights in the Watchmen property," Fox says in a statement.

 

"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."

 

It's not clear exactly why Fox is asking for an injunction to block Watchmen from coming out, especially since the film's already in the can, although it could simply be a ploy to gain a large portion of ticket sales. There's also no indication why Fox waited so long to bring its case.

 

Warners, meanwhile, tried to spin the ruling as favorably as possible.

 

"It is our company's policy not to comment on pending litigation, and thus will not comment on the specifics of this case," the studio's statement reads. "That said, the court's ruling simply means that the parties will engage in discovery and proceed with the litigation.

 

"We respectfully disagree with Fox's position and do not believe they have any rights in and to this project."

 

Fees has asked the studios to expedite the pretrial wrangling. After all, the film's release is apporaching and the Doomsday Clock is ticking.

 

Great. First they delay Potter, now Watchmen- that I'm actually starting to look forward to- looks to be delayed.

 

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They decide to wait until the movie is done filming to take the case to court? That seems like a dickish move.

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No, they waited for the film to generate serious positive buzz and show it will probably be a first weekend hit. If the film had been booed at the trailer showing and no magazine did a positive story on it, FOX wouldn't have said a word. The moment it looks like they screwed up and might lose cash, NOW it's something to sue about.

 

Great, just great. One of the two films I was really looking forward to seeing might now be gone.

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1) The suit was filed before the trailer was released

 

2) If Fox wins, Warners will just (grudgingly) give them a big chunk of the profits. All they really want is money.

 

3) Regardless of why FOX is dong it and the timing, IF THEY WIN THE CASE, it's because they have the legal grounds to win. If you're right, you're right.

 

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It makes me wonder, though- could this be the REAL reason they moved Half-Blood Prince to next year? Either in case Watchmen ends up sitting on the shelf for an extended period of time, or to offset their losses should Fox win?

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1) The suit was filed before the trailer was released

 

) If Fox wins, Warners will just (grudgingly) give them a big chunk of the profits. All they really want is money.

 

3) Regardless of why FOX is dong it and the timing, IF THEY WIN THE CASE, it's because they have the legal grounds to win. If you're right, you're right.

 

I heard about this on ATTACK OF THE SHOW last night, and they said if Fox gets their way, the movie isn't even going to be released. They interviewed an editor for Entertainment Weekly, and he said that Fox doesn't want money, they don't even want the movie to come out.

 

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I thought the DC Comics/Warner Bros. agreement/ownership (admittedly, I'm still fuzzy on it all) has been around for decades? If that's the case, then doesn't that trump Fox even attempting to do anything with it, considering WB would have dibs due to it being a DC product?

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From what I remember from hearing the story last night, back in the 1980's and early 90's (from 1986-1991 I believe) Fox owned the rights. One of the producers left Fox and he had the rights to the film version of THE WATCHMEN. There was an agreement that if he sold the rights to a third-party, Fox would get paid for this. Fox never got paid, according to them, and they don't care about getting money for the movie, they don't want it released. From the story it made it seem like they don't care about getting money, but they don't want anyone else making money off of this.

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I thought the DC Comics/Warner Bros. agreement/ownership (admittedly, I'm still fuzzy on it all) has been around for decades? If that's the case, then doesn't that trump Fox even attempting to do anything with it, considering WB would have dibs due to it being a DC product?

I think the general consensus among the people who work at DC is that 75% of the time Warner Bros doesn't even remember that it owns DC Comics.

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The reason you know their goal is money rather than actually stopping the film's release, is that they waited until it was late in production, maybe even finished, before filing suit.

 

That strategy is designed for only one thing, make it so WB actually has a finished film that they NEED to get out... they panic... pay whatever's needed to get the f'ing thing out the door. it's designed to force a settlement.

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The reason you know their goal is money rather than actually stopping the film's release, is that they waited until it was late in production, maybe even finished, before filing suit.

 

That strategy is designed for only one thing, make it so WB actually has a finished film that they NEED to get out... they panic... pay whatever's needed to get the f'ing thing out the door. it's designed to force a settlement.

 

Or they could have thought, WB spent all this money in the movie and publicity and it's their loss.

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The problem being it doesn't matter if they own DC, it's wether or not they own the rights to this specific comic. Otherwise Marvel would be making Spider-Man and X-Men movies.

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If WB sold the right to Watchmen to Fox, then sure, they have a case. But if not, if someone else did, it wasn't theirs to sell, therefore ownership should remain with WB. And I would imagine a big studio like Warner Brothers would check first to see if they owned the rights to a movie they were producing.

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It is, unfortunately, not that simple. Fox unquestionably owned the legal rights to a Watchmen movie back in the early 90s. However, those rights were partly tied up through some of the individual producers. One of those guys left Fox and eventually got to Warner Brothers, claiming he took the rights to Watchmen with him. Fox disagrees. It's a lot more complicated then that, there's a lot of various contract subclauses and disagreements over whether certain payments were made or not, but that's the gist of it.

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Either way...why are they making it harder for us to watch the Watchmen?

 

Yeah, I just read it. Bought it Tuesday, finished it last night. Fucking BRILLIANT shit, even if the ending is a little anticlimactic and bizarre, even if somewhat sensical after giving it some thought.

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Either way...why are they making it harder for us to watch the Watchmen?

 

Yeah, I just read it. Bought it Tuesday, finished it last night. Fucking BRILLIANT shit, even if the ending is a little anticlimactic and bizarre, even if somewhat sensical after giving it some thought.

 

Corey, I have to agree. I bought it Sunday and started it Monday, finished it yesterday. I had the same thing to say about the ending. After reading it, it is a little easy to pick out some of the things that can be left out of the movie.

 

Don't think it's a spoiler, but I don't want to upset anyone

 

Just about everything by the newsstand, except for the last part of it. Obviously all the excerpts in between the chapters, and some of the back story of the characters, there was just so damn much of that.

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Eh...I'd say keep at least some of the newsstand/Black Freighter stuff. It ties into the story well, and usually sums up what just happened or what's about to.

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The biggest problem with taking that out is it relates to

Ozymandias and how his solution is only temporary. All the people here keep talking about how he fixed the world, but I don't think Moore meant that at all. The Black Freighter is about what one is willing to do for survival, which mirrors what Ozymandias is willing to do for the survival of Earth. In the end, the man destroys what he was trying to return to and is accepted as part of the Black Freighter as one of the damned. Hearing how Ozymandias is having a dream that mimics the end of it, it shows how what he did was perhaps more damning than anything, despite his intentions. At least, that's how I interpret it.

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If there were ever a continuation by Moore, I could see Ozymandias being outed via the New Frontiersman printing Rorschach's journal. Maybe not right away, but Seymour could pull it from the crank file eventually, and it gets printed. Rorschach had most of it wrong, but I don't see how some more investigations couldn't bring up the truth about the "alien invasion," with Ozymandias being the mutual target of Russia and the US.

 

Overall, still a great book. I'd have to say that the only character truly sympathetic was probably either Dan Dreiberg or Captain Metropolis. The former because he just seemed to want to do the right thing, and to want to impress Juspeszyck (Silk Spectre II, I forget her first name...Julie? Jane? JAUNDICE?!), and the latter because he really DID just want to do the right thing.

 

That's going to be interesting to see: if the characters are as fleshed out as they were in the book. Hollis, Sally, even the older Bernard and Joey...side characters that helped a lot with the story, so I hope they're more than just one-line characters.

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Maybe not right away, but Seymour could pull it from the crank file eventually, and it gets printed.

 

As I interpreted it,

Rorschach's journal does get printed right away, considering the editor said he was leaving it entirely in that boy's hands, and you pretty much see hi reaching for the journal.

 

That said, I read that they're gonna release the Black Freighter as like, an animated bit on DVD or something? I could be wrong, I just read a rumour like that somewhere.

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