Who Watches the Watchmen? Might be Nobody.
Despite Scuzzbuster’s earlier assertion that you shouldn’t off yourself before 2009, one of his reasons may no longer be enough to keep you breathing. According the The New York Times, it seems the judge in the Fox/Warner Bros. Watchmen rights case has made a preliminary ruling, prior to the scheduled January trial date, that Twentieth Century Fox does indeed own a copyright interest in the film.
So what does this mean? Basically that Fox has at least partial ownership of the property and the legal right to distribute the film, and therefore reaping a portion of the profits it seems certain to make. Warners, of course, isn’t too keen on letting another studio cash in on a project that they’ve financed and sunk millions into, especially one that has “box office smash” written all over it. The judge has advised both parties to work out a settlement, noting that Warners appealing the decision (which seems likely) would push the release date to, oh, roughly 2011.
So now the question becomes: Will Warners share the money with Fox to keep the film on schedule, or will they fight the long fight and delay the return on their investment in hopes of keeping it all? Just like for the Watchmen themselves, the doomsday clock is ticking…
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3 Responses to “Who Watches the Watchmen? Might be Nobody.”
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December 28th, 2008 at 11:06 am
There’s a lot of politics at play here. Did Fox wait deliberately until the film was finished for bargaining power? My personal thought is that large sums of the government bailout funds ought to be used to pacify all parties involved. Even if the movie is surprisingly mediocre I’ll still get more in March of 09 from watching it than I will from the GM. The government can’t ignore the large sums of money from the geek community that go into keeping the economy afloat. It’s the nation’s best kept secret that the country would disintegrate instantaneously if the Star Trek commemorative plate industry went belly up.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Just read again today that Fox is officially filed an injunction to stop the release of the film until a settlement is reached. Details are still fuzzy, but it sounds like Warner feels that the rights Fox holds are not valid enough to warrant a settlement. And the hits just keep on coming.
Also read that Abrams Star Trek is locked in to the final cut sometime in the next week then has to sit on the shelf for 5 months. Fuck, if Watchmen gets delayed, they should move that puppy up to a March release date to fill the void that’s going to be left.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Why in the hell was this shit not done, by both parties, BEFORE this happened?
Also, we should take bets on how long it will take to leak to the net and then fuck them anyway.