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Watchmen Delayed, Or Worse 220

whisper_jeff writes "Due to some potential copyright issues, The Watchmen might be delayed, or worse. It seems that Fox claims it still owns copyrights which would prevent Warner Bros from releasing the movie. US District Court Judge Gary Feess decided that Fox had enough of a case that he's willing to hear things out. The geek in me hopes that it will be resolved quickly and the movie will hit theaters on time."
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Watchmen Delayed, Or Worse

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  • by clickety6 ( 141178 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:02AM (#24671957)

    ... possibly none of us, it seems!

    • by Sfing_ter ( 99478 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @10:26AM (#24673301) Homepage Journal

      Well, the Judge will. He gets first screening. Ingenious plot - become a judge in a district that has copyright disputes involving huge studio movies - the ultimate Videophile... all his plans have finally come to fruition...

      • (which almost all judges aren't)
        he'd throw this out without delay.

        It's not as if we haven't seen this many times. A rival studio will come up with any excuse, mostly to try to stick their hand in the pot. Remember the frivolous last-minute lawsuit by MGM against "Goldmember" merely for its title? Especially considering the OBVIOUS parody going on.

        Score this down as just one more abuse of the legal system. The proper response from the Judge ought to have been a good belly laugh, followed by "now get the fuck

  • no big deal... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by c.derby ( 574103 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:03AM (#24671961)

    this really isn't a big deal... worst case scenario, they'll just have to throw a lot of money at fox to get 'em off their case.

  • by Digital Vomit ( 891734 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:03AM (#24671963) Homepage Journal
    Keep on promoting those arts and sciences, Copyright Law!
    • Re:Copyright Law (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kidgenius ( 704962 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:27AM (#24672377)
      So in this case, a piece of work written by a couple of guys who are still alive, which was released not too long ago, and someone paid a lot of money for the rights to make and distribute a movie version of, you feel that this is a poor example of copyright law? I actually think this is an excellent example of the system working properly. If this was a work from 100 years ago, yeah, you'd have a legitimate beef. But copyright law needs to exist in some way. And even under the old system which gave copyright for 35 years, which most /.ers agree with that system, this work would still be covered under those conditions.
      • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:35AM (#24672503)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:41AM (#24672567) Homepage

        So in this case, a piece of work written by a couple of guys who are still alive, which was released not too long ago, and someone paid a lot of money for the rights to make and distribute a movie version of, you feel that this is a poor example of copyright law? I actually think this is an excellent example of the system working properly. If this was a work from 100 years ago, yeah, you'd have a legitimate beef. But copyright law needs to exist in some way.

        Put into another way, it is a company A (in this case Fox) trying to prevent company B (in this case Warner) from releasing a piece of work (in this case a movie), on the ground that company A still has some rights secured for the corresponding IP.

        I actually think this is a wonderful example of how the system is broken. If this was a company releasing a movie without paying the authors, yeah, you'd have a legitimate beef.
        But in this case, the authors will get paid anyway from company B. Its just an infight between company A and B with company A trying to get a piece of the lucrative cake, even if it's B who put the biggest part of the effort into producing the movie.

        Copyright law exist to protect the original author from abuses, so that the result of their hard working and sweating aren't used without proper compensation.

        This isn't the case.

        • by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @10:00AM (#24672847)

          But in this case, the authors will get paid anyway from company B. Its just an infight between company A and B with company A trying to get a piece of the lucrative cake, even if it's B who put the biggest part of the effort into producing the movie.

          For company A to have a case, they must have already paid the authors some agreed sum of money in return to some right to the work. I very much doubt that it's quite as cut and dried as you seem to be trying to make it out to be.

        • Do the Authors want the movie made - Yes
          Do the Authors want the movie released - Yes

          Does copyright law allow this to happen - No

          Conclusion copyright law is broken because the authors have lost control of their IP ...

          • by Surye ( 580125 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (08eyrus)> on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @10:57AM (#24673927) Homepage
            Eh, you clearly don't know Alan Moore's opinions of comic book movies, especially his own. He's already (as always) disowned the movie, and says he does not plan on ever seeing it.

            He did say however that David Hayter as the screenwriter is the only chance this movie has, but Moore HATES media crossovers.
          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by the.Ceph ( 863988 )

            Do the Authors want the movie made - Yes
            Do the Authors want the movie released - Yes

            Does copyright law allow this to happen - No
            Conclusion copyright law is broken because the authors have lost control of their IP ...

            Well you're wrong twice, but luckily for you two wrongs in this case do make a right.

            Does the Author want the movie made - No
            Does the Author want the movie released - No

            Does copyright law allow this to happen - Yes

            Conclusion copyright law is broken because the author has lost control of their IP ... although I'm willing to give it a pass this time because I want the movie to be made and released.

          • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @11:12AM (#24674227)

            Do the Authors want the movie made - Yes
            Do the Authors want the movie released - Yes

            Alan Moore hates the idea of any of his comics being made into a movie. He believes he wrote his work for a particular type of medium in order to show the strengths of that medium and none of his comics will translate well to any other medium.

            He has also said that although the Watchmen script is "as close to the original as it could be," that he still won't see the movie.

            • I've gotta say, though (Devin Faraci wrote a great article on this for CHUD.com) Moore is kind of a dick when it comes to the subject of adaptations, which he says are totally bankrupt at an artform. After all, 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' is nothing if not an adaptation of classic literature figures into a new medium. Not to mention that even the characters in 'Watchmen' were adapted from other DC heroes. Moore may have the right to be cranky about how some of his stuff has been adapted, but to sug
        • Copyright law exist to protect the original author from abuses, so that the result of their hard working and sweating aren't used without proper compensation. This isn't the case.

          Wrong Keep in mind Company A (Fox) originally paid for the transferal of rights for exclusive publication, the original author being the beneficiary of that transaction. If you don't protect the rights of Company A, you're restricting the free market and causing author's selling of their publication rights to have much less v
        • Put into another way, it is a company A trying to prevent company B from releasing a piece of work , on the ground that company A still has some rights secured for the corresponding IP.

          Let's replace Fox with Microsoft, Warner with the community, and IP with Linux. No wonder this case seemed so familiar...

        • by trix_e ( 202696 )

          the bottom line is that this isn't a copyright issue at all, so arguing about it in that frame of reference just clouds the issue.

          it's a simple contracts issue. IP was licensed and rights were retained by various parties, and once you do that a few times and pass it around things can get convoluted quickly.

          Stand down copyright freedom fighters! Nothing to see here... Fox will get paid and the movie will come out on time.

          The end.

        • Copyright law exist to protect the original author from abuses, so that the result of their hard working and sweating aren't used without proper compensation.

          And part of how it's supposed to accomplish that is by protecting publishers from having other publishers poach their investment.

          In order for the author to get compensation, some publisher has to pay him (traditionally, at least). So let's say publisher A pays the author and invests money in getting the work edited properly, and then publisher B gets a copy of the final work and starts printing/selling it. Imagine what would happen if that were allowed. Suddenly there would be absolutely no economic inc

  • More details (Score:5, Informative)

    by GBC ( 981160 ) * on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:05AM (#24672003)
    There is a more detailed account - including a useful chronology - over at Deadline Hollywood Daily [deadlineho...ddaily.com] if you are so inclined.

    Assuming that version of events is correct, then it looks like Fox may still have a legitimate claim on distribution rights for Watchmen. If so, then this lawsuit is probably more likely a way for them to get a cut of the action rather than to stop the whole thing outright.
  • gotta wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by theM_xl ( 760570 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:05AM (#24672015)

    Why the hell didn't Fox realise this before?

  • Fox will let it out, believe you me. They'll just want a percentage of the royalties.

    • Fox will let it out, believe you me. They'll just want a percentage of the royalties.

      Well, with the way movie studios do accounting, that could be interesting. We're talking about an industry which tried to tell Marvel that they didn't make any money from Spiderman 3 and therefore didn't owe them money.

      I think if Fox really believes they owned the rights, some corporate bickering could leave the movie DOA. If it does get released, and unless it does exceptionally well in the box office, WB could be left l

    • Hollywood-style accounting would result in this being quite the losing proposition for Fox - they'll ask for the money up-front because they know the game too.
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:08AM (#24672071)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Studios partner up all the time for releases. Warner isn't just going to shelve a big-budget movie. Worst case scenario, they'll just cut a revenue sharing deal with Fox.
  • meh (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:16AM (#24672199)
    Who wants to see a movie about a bunch of Swiss artisans in their underwear?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yeah, because they're likely to sell $120 million in merchandise to a bunch of torrenters.

      • ...and the T-Shirt Economy is one step closer.
      • Yeah, because they're likely to sell $120 million in merchandise to a bunch of torrenters.

        Yeah! Why would anyone pay good money for an action figure when they could just download one over bittorrent... Hang on a sec, that doesn't quite work, does it?

        See, this is one of those interesting ways in which intellectual property is not the same thing as actual property.

  • "Or worse..." - Not delayed?
  • Quoth Taco:

    The geek in me hopes that it will be resolved quickly and the movie will hit theaters on time.

    I have many doubts that the film can live up to the graphic novel. As a friend of mine put it: The detail and attention devoted to even a single panel in the novel just can't be captured in film. I'm not as big a fan as he is, but I tend to agree (even though the statement is a bit hyperbolic). Watchmen is a dark, well captured story, and I can only see the film being very... well, Hollywood. Oh, it'll no doubt be 'dark', but it'll be a safe, well-defined dark. I really hope I'm wrong.

    Note that w

    • Oh, it'll no doubt be 'dark', but it'll be a safe, well-defined dark. I really hope I'm wrong

      From what I've read, the theatrical release will be toned down, and fans of the book should wait until the full version comes out on DVD. I also read that they've added in some action scenes to make a better movie, and that it is *chock* full of sexiness... The uncut version will probably be rated 18+.

      I'm of mixed feelings -- but as always, I have low expectations. That way, if it's decent, I'll be pleasantly sur

  • ...Darl McBride claims SCO has copyrights over the script for the movie and is waiting in line to file suit after Fox.

  • by TheDarkMaster ( 1292526 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:27AM (#24672379)
    From comment on Deadline Hollywood Daily [deadlineho...ddaily.com] above:

    4) Waiting - Waiting is a common game in Hollywood. When you see someone doing something you don't like, you usually wait until they are fairly pregnant, because that's where the money is. Had Fox stepped in the second they saw this occur, the movie probably just wouldn't have gotten made by WB, and Fox would be sitting on a property they hadn't developed in decades. BUT... by waiting until WB finished production, now there's money! Now Fox can see some cash because WB is so pregnant that they have to do something to release the movie. It is possible that WB can make an equitable claim of laches (sitting around trying to maximize the damages), but that's in equity, not in law; and that's strictly up to the court.
  • if they screw up the release schedule, fox reaps massive ill will from the distributors

    if they cancel, fox won't make any money on their claim

    what will happen is the lawyers will argue about numbers, fox will get $25 million, and fox will walk away

    this happened on the johnny knoxville/ jessica simpson dukes of hazzard movie. the legal wrangling left some producers with a claim on the property with $17 million

    someone looks red faced in wb legal, they screwed up

    better analysis at aintitcool.com [aintitcool.com]

    I will, however, reiterate that, no matter how dire the situation looks (per the filing - which, at 112 pages, is probably longer than the shooting script for X-MEN: THE LAST STAND), you will have your WATCHMEN on March 6, 2009. Fox may be able to get away with mugging a rival studio for eight figures, but they're not going to actively impede the rollout of a $100 million-plus motion picture. Though Rupert Murdoch and his garbage-greenlighting toady Tom Rothman are certainly a pair of ruthless operators, knocking a potential blockbuster off the spring release schedule would be bad, bad, bad for the movie business in general (e.g. I can't imagine the exhibitors, who've been cycling through tepidly performing Fox releases all year, would be terribly pleased).

    The question right now is whether Fox will settle for a lump sum buyout or a percentage of the gross. My guess is that they'll gladly take the former - and I'm quite sure they've already a number in mind. $10 million? Too low. $50 million? Too high. $25 million? If David Poland's numbers make sense, The House of Rothman should be happy with that haul - especially since there's no guarantee that WATCHMEN will catch on with rank-and-file moviegoers. (I might've been one of those dipshits who lowballed THE DARK KNIGHT's domestic take, but there was still no doubt it would make more than BATMAN BEGINS. WATCHMEN isn't a franchise; it's a standalone gamble. And an R-rated one at that. There's no telling at the moment if it'll bomb or hit.)

    • by dpilot ( 134227 )

      I think it would be really spiffy if Fox got too greedy, and WB looked at their own resulting profitability, and out-and-out cancelled the Watchmen - with appropriate publicity.

      Personally I've more than had it with the "Some of that money ought to be MINE!" mentality that so pervades modern business models. As others have said, Fox could have raised the red flag long ago, they just waited until WB was past the point of no return. IMHO that demonstrates bad faith and should be taken into account in any rul

  • Fixed (Score:3, Funny)

    by bingo_cannon ( 779085 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:34AM (#24672487)
    Watchmen delayed, or better There, fixed that for ya!
  • Money (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gambit3 ( 463693 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:34AM (#24672491) Homepage Journal

    None of this "or worse" crap. We all know it's about the money. Fox won't do anything that doesn't make them money, and for them to make money, they need this movie to be released. With Fox as partners, of course.

  • ...probably hoping it does.

    I must admit that while I wish to see the film, I do agree with the man that penned it. If he'd have intended it to be a film, he'd have written a film. I'm not convinced it can be done justice in 2 hours and 20 minutes.

  • A simple solution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rik Sweeney ( 471717 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:41AM (#24672569) Homepage

    Allow Warner Bros to release the movie into theatres on the promise that Warner show a bunch of trailers for Fox movies. I'm pretty sure a similar thing happened regarding Austin Powers, but I could be wrong.

  • by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @09:53AM (#24672743)

    Stories like this blow me away. I have no idea what the budget on this picture is, can't be arsed to look it up, but Dark Knight was $150 mil before marketing so I would not be surprised if Watchmen is in the same ballpark. That's a shitload of money, people. I know if I had to answer for it, I'd be paying lawyers up one side and down the other to make sure that there were no surprises. "Who's optioned this property in the past? We bought the rights now but are we sure we're free and clear on this, now encumbrances, no crazy surprises?" Funny thing, Ghostbusters the name was free and for the taking when it came to shooting a movie but there was a shitty live-action show with a similar name, Ghost Busters. So when they cut the licensing deal for toys and the cartoon, suddenly there's this other Ghost Busters product coming out with toys, a cartoon, and there was nothing they could do about that. So that's when they changed the name and branding of their product to the Real Ghostbusters.

    But back to the original story. WTF? I seriously, seriously doubt that Fox's goal is to stop distribution. No, this is like patent squatting. The squatter does not want the target company to stop selling the product, that means the parent stops making money. No, no, no! The successful parasite does not kill the host! No, the squatter wants the mark to make lots and lots of money because that makes the squatter's take all the bigger. Fox will let this studio do all the work of putting the movie together and then get a juicy cut off the take.

    It amazes me how such an elementary mistake could be made with such big dollars at stake. I see similar mistakes on a smaller scale all the time. The most common one is zoning screw-ups. Some poor schlub invests a lot of time and money in putting up a sports bar or some other business and later finds out that the area isn't zoned for it. What the hell? Shouldn't this have come out at some point during the process? Shouldn't his lawyer have seen it, shouldn't it have come up during permitting, applying for an alcohol license, something? And with this guy putting up so much money, you'd think he'd have done his homework. But no, so sorry, business goes buh-bye. Holy shit.

    I saw another one of these where a builder didn't do the proper soil testing that was supposed to be done before beginning construction of a sub-division. The long and the short of it was that the lots needed massive preparation to support the weight of a house because a lot of infill was used. Was that prep done? Nope. So the slabs were cracking shortly after construction. WTF? Apparently it's a successful tactic to do fraudulently incompetent work under a corporation, then bankrupt it before the lawsuits are filed. I don't see how people can get away with it but they do.

    • The successful parasite does not kill the host!

      So would you claim the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is unsuccessful because it gives people AIDS and then kills them?

      • So would you claim the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is unsuccessful because it gives people AIDS and then kills them?

        Oh, yes. Far more so than Ebola. Bear in mind, we're not talking about anything where design is used, the evolution of these viruses are random and directionless. Success and failure are human value judgments. If we say success is killing people the fastest, Ebola wins hands down. If we say success is spreading to the greatest number of hosts, Ebola fails precisely because it kills so quickly and dramatically. By this standard, influenza is even more successful because it kills far less people, leaving the

    • C'mon: have you ever been part of a huge project? And you made no mistakes in the process?

      If you haven't been part of a huge project, then I can understand why you are surprised mistakes get made. But in the world I've seen mistakes happen all the time no matter what the size of the project. In fact, larger projects tend to have more mistakes (though if run well, perhaps fewer as a percentage of total tasks).

      This is a big mistake, it sucks for WB, and someone might lose their job. But if there's no surp

    • by Agripa ( 139780 )

      Zoning screw-ups like you mention are not always caused by lack of diligence in verifying that the zoning is correct. The mistake can be deliberately caused by whoever ultimately controls zoning where there is an interest by either them or a third party to buy the now established successful business at a deep discount after which the zoning problem magically "fixes" itself.

  • Argh. (Score:4, Funny)

    by sammy baby ( 14909 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @10:05AM (#24672953) Journal

    Argh.

    I saw the trailer when I went to go see Dark Knight a couple of weeks ago. At first, I wasn't sure what I was looking at, until I saw the pair of CGI-ified Billy Crudups floating around with the little atom symbol on their foreheads.

    "Wait a minute. That looks like Dr. Manhattan."

    Then the serious special effects started, and I saw The Comedian's smiley face button, and my eyes rolled back into my head and I went into a blissed-out fugue state. So, I dunno, maybe this is for the best, for the sake of my fragile sanity, but damn I wanted to see this movie.

  • Please Note (Score:5, Funny)

    by greg_barton ( 5551 ) * <greg_barton@yaho ... m minus math_god> on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @10:46AM (#24673677) Homepage Journal

    If the Watchmen movie is killed due to copyright reasons I will destroy the universe.

    Have a Nice Day,
    Dr. Manhattan

  • I remember the Punisher with Dolph Lundgren coming out (AND NOT UNDER THE MARVEL LICENSE). It was a really good move for the time. Marvel's lawyers pulled the early releases and a re-write to correspond to Marvel's requirements was made. It was officially released the next year. It was crap (as like most movies from Marvel at the time).
  • Surely with the pastabowl of copyrights that exists in Hollywood, WB has something they can retaliate with?

    I thought that was the whole point of the mutually-assured-destruction scheme we currently have, so that one competitor couldn't threaten another without having a similar dagger held at their own throat.

    I think I've just reached a new level of cynicism about this system.

  • You mean like another bad comic based movie being released? That is pretty bad...

  • Hot young actors with all the right moves playing characters in the Watchmen film? Come ON people!

    I think everybody salivating for this film has seriously missed the point of the story.

    Go back and re-read the comics. The WHOLE point of the comics was that the dream of superheros was juvenile and false, a band-aid solution which simply could not address the real problems of general self-destructive tendencies in people, and that it was the realization of this which drove Viedt to enact his 'master plan'.

  • I don't think there's any cause for alarm. Fox and Warner both know that they'll only get money if the film releases. If Warner was willing to pay $17 million for The Dukes of Hazzard, they will be willing to pay to settle this issue.

  • Oh, yeah... Needs a 'FUCKFOX' tag. *sigh*

  • It will be released (Score:3, Interesting)

    by justinlee37 ( 993373 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @04:04PM (#24680025)

    Fox doesn't want to shut down the movie. Hiring lawyers to pursue this in court is, from the perspective of an executive, a business decision. It wouldn't be done unless there was a profit to be made.

    So, where's the profit? There are two possibilities.

    1) Fox is planning on releasing their own "Watchmen" film, and they want theirs to debut first.

    This is an unlikely scenario. The Watchmen is not a well-known mainstream franchise and if they had already started production, we'd probably have heard of it. If they haven't started production yet, then the businessmen are probably more interested in scenario 2, since it has a guaranteed return (guaranteeing a return on investment is important in business. Yes, this includes lawyer fees, and everything else).

    2) Fox sees that they can get a portion of royalties or a settlement from WB for the licensing rights they're entitled to.

    This is the most likely scenario. Fox will show that they own the copyright, WB will be up shit creek without a paddle because they've produced a movie they aren't legally entitled to release, and then WB will settle out-of-court with Fox for 10% of the royalties, or $20 million, or something similar. My prediction is that we'll see the movie eventually, but there is a possibility that it will be delayed due to proceedings (however, WB will have a great incentive to settle before the theatrical release date, Fox probably realizes this). There is also a distinct possibility that the producer will not enjoy as much of the profits as they would have.

    But we will still get our movie. Of course, depending on the nature of the settlement, you may want to boycott the box office in order to minimize Fox's profit (they are, after all, peddlers of pedantic mind-rotting boob-tube junk).

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