New Watchmen Trailer, Legal Status and Delays
With Watchmen in serious jeopardy of a release delay everything about it starts to look a little better. Below is the kick-ass Japanese trailer for the movie which is 100% better than the US/English Second Trailer that’s been around for a while. The Japanese version has almost completely different footage from the English version, and ultimately is much more geek-inspiring.
So what are the possible implications of the legal mess that’s brewing and the future of this film?
This drooling fanboy’s nightmare legal scenario really started to brew back in August when a judge ruled that Fox had just enough evidence to support it’s claims that it still retained distribution rights to Watchmen.
Basically, Fox is claiming that have legally owned the rights to the property since the early 1990s and have standing legal documentation that states anyone wanting to use it must either negotiate a buyout of those rights or agree to a flat 2.5% payout of the film’s gross earnings as well as any spin-off material. Now if the terms were of the net earnings, Warner probably wouldn’t even blink an eye and just agree to it, but the potential gross earnings provision is pretty stiff and could potentially erode net profits of the film considerably if they agreed to it.
The problem now is that Warner is sitting on a cash cow of a film. Currently, director Zack Snyder is fighting for a release that is about 3 – 3.5 hours long with a possible 4.5 hour director’s cut appearing on DVD late this year or next.
It would seem that the big winner is going to be Fox. Fox claims that when it was obvious that Warner was going into full development of the project that they were simply waiting for them to make contact to negotiate the buyout or offer the flat 2.5% gross.
As thing’s progressed and the release dates grew nearer, they finally realized they had to take legal action.
As much as fans want Fox to just go away and leave this thing alone, there’s absolutely no evidence that Warner has any leg to stand on. However, if they are going to let this thing go to court, and they’ve given no indication that they are going to settle, then they must have something, wouldn’t you think?
It’s just a matter of seeing what cards their lawyers have up their sleeves. Either they have something, or they are just desperately trying to scour every inch of documentation on this in the hopes of finding something.
My gut feeling is that we’re not going to see a release delay on this thing unless Warner honestly feels that they are going to see a substantially more favorable settlement by letting this thing drag on rather than settling outright before March.
In the meantime, thanks to TrailerAddict this may be the absolute best Watchmen footage you see for a while. Enjoy!
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3 Responses to “New Watchmen Trailer, Legal Status and Delays”
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January 9th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Though it may not be worth posting a brand new article, I thought it would be fitting to add that it sounds like Warner and Fox have decided to sit down with each other and talk settlement.
There’s been a “war” of letters this week to several websites and press agencies from those involved.
Basically, it sounds like FOX passed 100% on this movie and had no intention of ever making it. When this current incarnation was pitched with Zach Snyder at the helm, Fox once again hated the script, did not understand or care about the history of the project or the Watchmen fanbase nor did they care.
On the flip side, Fox claims that the began sending letters to Warner prior to Warner even starting on production of the film asking for settlement of the rights and that Warner basically ignored them and decided to move forward at their own risk.
What does all this mean? I think it means that’s probably still safe to get naked and start painting yourself blue for a big night on March 6th. But it’s going to cost Warner some serious jack for underestimating Fox’s aggressiveness in defending their film rights.
Scuzz
January 10th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Thanks for the update, Scuzz. I really just dont get why in the hell Fox would have passed on this movie/series etc. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.
January 10th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I can tell you exactly why FOX passed on this property. Apart from having nobody at the studio that was really a true fan of the material they did some simple budget math. They realized that in order to do this material anywhere near visual justice that the film would cost $X00 million dollars plus. It was at that point that they saw this project as a choice: Either do the material justice and leave virtually no $$ to have any big named actors be the draw OR attract 1 or 2 “box office” lead names and basically skimp the project out to a visual and story challenged 90-120 minute cut-rate epic.
Warner saw the same choice and decided that if they could get all of the other elements into place, they would take the gamble of having no big name actors/actresses headlining this thing. Fox had no advocates at the studio level willing to take that chance on this material. So what Warner did was hire “unknowns” and take a director that had only one really visually compelling and successful film under his belt (Zack Snyder who directed300) and make the damned film a labor of love for the fans. If they had decided that they needed to one or two A-Listers for this, this would have bloated the budget well beyond the $200 Million mark, which is not a gamble worth taking at any level.
So, in essence, it’s hard to be completely “anti-Fox” in that sense. At least they didn’t try to cut-rate the project into a piece of shit themselves. But it’s just basic math. These days, when you get some A-List celebrities that make 10-20 Mill per picture, that can be such a huge percentage of the film’s budget that it’s hardly worth it anymore. That’s how a film with such stunningly cool effects work like Cloverfied can get made for 30-40 Mil when you get films like YES MAN with Jim Carrey with virtually no effects work with budgets pushing 100 Mill. YES MAN was a shit movie start to finish that still paid dividends for the studio based on enough “Jim Carrey” draw to get it through a few weekends and DVD sales. Cloverfield had all actors off the street and they made the film for just a little over what Carrey’s paycheck alone was for Yes Man.
Warner said fuck the celebs lets just make an awesome flick. Fox didn’t have enough faith that could be done to roll the dice of having no A-Listers on the movie posters.
Really can’t tell who made the right business choice until March.