Make no mistake about it movie fans, this situation is 100% all Warner Bros fault.
As most of you know, the new movie Watchmen is scheduled to be released by Warner Bros. on March 6th and people are going crazy about it. I’m one of them. But some time ago news came out that Fox Studios was suing WB claiming that the rights to Watchmen still belongs to them. A lot of people thought nothing would come of that… until last week when a judge ruled that yes indeed… the rights to Watchmen still belong (at least in part) to Fox. Yikes!!!!
Now with that established, Fox is asking a judge to prevent WB from releasing Watchmen until the issues are settled. Guess what… I think they’ll win.
What’s even worse, it seems that a lawyer for WB doesn’t think there will be a settlement and that the film will indeed get delayed. The folks over at ComingSoon give us this:
U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess last week agreed with Fox that Warner Bros. had infringed its copyright by developing and shooting the film, scheduled for release March 6. Feess said Monday he plans to hold a trial Jan. 20 to decide remaining issues. Fox claims it never fully relinquished story rights from its deal made in the late 1980s, and sued Warner Bros. in February. Warner Bros. contended Fox isn’t entitled to distribution. Warner Bros.’ attorney said Monday he didn’t know if an appeal was coming, but thinks a trial is necessary and a settlement unlikely.
Ok… I know that none of you want to hear this… but this is the truth. Fox is right, and this is all WB’s fault.
If the rights belong to Fox, then WB had no business making the film without an agreement with Fox, and I have been told by a very reliable source that Fox DID INDEED communicate with WB about this a LONG TIME AGO and WB basically ignored them.
I used to work in in law… and when someone was going to do something as simple as buy a house, they hired a lawyer to investigate the house to make damn sure all the rights to the property was rightfully being transfered. Why the hell didn’t WB so this with a multimillion movie rights deal?!?!?!
The bottom line is this. If the rights belong to Fox, then they have every single legal, moral and ethical right to step in. It totally sucks… but it’s the truth. If you’re a film fan and you’re mad about this… be mad at WB, not Fox.
