Fox to steal ‘Watchmen’ from Warner Brothers?

Talk about your bizarre and annoying legal cases, Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood is reporting that a judge has denied a motion by Warner Brothers to dismiss a lawsuit filed by 20th Century Fox over the rights to Watchmen.

I had no idea this was going on of course, because the way people sue each other over things as ridiculous as “coffee being too hot” annoys the crap out of me. I honestly feel like the legal system should start to recognize cases that are just there to waste our country’s time and money, and toss them to the curb.

This deal with Watchmen spans over 20 years and it results in a very serious question about who has the legal rights to distribute the film.

An inside source at Fox tells Nikki:

“In essence, the Judge appears to conclude that Fox retained distribution rights in Watchmen through the 1991 Largo quitclaim, and he concludes that, under the 1994 turnaround, producer Larry Gordon acquired an option to acquire Fox’s remaining interest in Watchmen that was never exercised, thereby leaving Fox with its rights under the 1994 agreement.”

“While the Judge’s opinion is preliminary and his views could change in the course of the litigation, his current take on the facts is consistent with our position.”

And the response from Warner Brothers came, officially and privately:

“The Court’s ruling simply means that the parties will engage in discovery and proceed with the litigation. The judge did not opine at all on the merits, other than to conclude that Fox satisfied the pleading requirements. We respectfully disagree with Fox’s position and do not believe they have any rights in and to this project.” But, privately, Warner Bros execs are decrying to me what they say is Fox’s “opportunistic claim,” noting that “Fox sat on its so-called rights for years while other studios in town developed this property. Fox even had an opportunity to re-acquire the project at some point and it passed on it!”

All of this makes my head hurt and if you want more details, you can go read Nikki’s lengthy article.

But the bottom line appears to be that Fox believes at the very least, it retained the rights to distribution for the film. Now I don’t understand all of this stuff very well, but I assume that if Fox took over those rights, Warner Brothers would have paid for the movie to be made and then watch Fox reap all the millions of dollars in revenue, which could set Warner Brothers back years.

The lawsuit was filed back in February, but it’s not a coincidence that the sudden mega-interest in the movie has woken Fox up to the fact that they sat on the Watchmen rights for 17-something years and are now wishing they had actually made the movie.

It will be utter insanity they win this case. It’s like when you were a kid and had a bunch of toys right? You played with your favorites, because you were tired of the old ones and just let them collect dust in your toy box.

Then one day, your little brother comes by, quietly takes your dirty ol’ Optimus Prime Transformer and suddenly that’s the only thing you want to play with.

Of course you haven’t played with Prime in 17 years and in reality, it already belongs to your brother.

I assume what will happen here is that Warner will pay an obscene amount of money to settle the case, we wont know much about it and the movie will be released as it normally would have.

But it’s a bummer to me that Warner has to face this kind of crap, because at least they own DC Comics, who published the original graphic novel, and if anyone deserves to make it, they do. Especially because from what is being said, they’ve succeeded in making it into a great film anyways, something no one else even want to attempt.