reevie
2/12/2008, 08:54 PM
Fox is suing Warner Bros to stop production on Watchmen.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox filed suit against Warner Bros. last Friday over the rights to the film version of Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Fox claims that it holds the exclusive copyrights and contract rights to the property, and is seeking an injunction to "restrain (Warner Bros. Pictures) from taking actions that violate Fox's copyrights and which stand to forever impair Fox's rights to control the distribution and development of this unique work," this according to the complaint.
Fox’s claim – it still has a hold of a piece of the Watchmen movie franchise, and hasn’t been paid.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
Fox claims that between 1986 and 1990, it acquired all movie rights to the 12-issue DC Comics series and screenplays by Charles McKeown and Sam Hamm. In 1991, Fox assigned some rights via a quitclaim to Largo International with the understanding that the studio held exclusive rights to distribute the first motion picture based on "Watchmen," according to the lawsuit.
When Largo dismantled, the rights were transferred to producer Lawrence Gordon. Under a "turnaround agreement" between Fox and Gordon, the producer agreed to pay a buy-out price to Fox if he entered into any agreement with another studio or third party to develop or produce "Watchmen," among other things.
Some historical notes about the above: Sam Hamm was brought in to the film project after Alan Moore declined to write the screenplay of the comic series, and Hamm’s screenplay reportedly changed major elements in the original story, including the ending. The project then moved to Warner Bros. and had Terry Gilliam and Joel Silver attached (with an altered screenplay) – this was the “Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dr. Manhattan” phase of the project’s development. Funding problems and Gilliam’s belief (shared by many fans as well as Moore) that the story was unfilmable saw the project die at Warner Bros. the first time, with the rights going back to Gordon.
In 1996, Gordon and Warner Bros. entered into an agreement, which saw the property moved between Universal (with David Hayter writing and directing), Revolution Studios and Paramount (with Darren Aronofsky, and then later Paul Greengrass directing Hayter’s script) before landing at Warner Bros. with Zack Snyder directing from a screenplay by Alex Tse.
As THR reports, Fox now claims that neither Gordon nor Warner Bros. has paid the buyout price or “advised the studio of any other conditions required under the agreement, including procedures necessary to acquire the rights to Watchmen from Fox.”
Fox is seeking unspecified damages in the lawsuit.
Warner Bros. describes the film version of Watchmen as:
A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion – a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers – Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity…but who is watching the watchmen?
The film based on the graphic novel is being directed by Zack Snyder (300) and produced by Lawrence Gordon (Die Hard), Lloyd Levin (United 93) and Deborah Snyder (300), with Herbert W. Gains serving as executive producer.
Playing the film’s core group of “masks,” the masked adventurers at the center of the story, are Malin Akerman (upcoming The Heartbreak Kid) as Laurie Juspeczyk, aka Silk Spectre; Billy Crudup (The Good Shepherd) as Jon Osterman, aka Dr. Manhattan; Matthew Goode (Match Point) as Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias; Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) as Walter Kovacs, aka Rorschach; Jeffrey Dean Morgan (TV’s Grey’s Anatomy) as Edward Blake, aka the Comedian; and Patrick Wilson (Little Children) as Dan Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl.
Watchmen was originally published by DC comics as a 12-comic book series between 1986 and 1987, before subsequently being collected into a trade paperback. It is the only graphic novel to win the prestigious Hugo Award or to be named among Time magazine’s “100 Best English Language Novels from 1923 to the Present.”
Watchmen is currently in production in Vancouver, and is slated to open on March 6th, 2009. The film's website can be found here.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox filed suit against Warner Bros. last Friday over the rights to the film version of Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Fox claims that it holds the exclusive copyrights and contract rights to the property, and is seeking an injunction to "restrain (Warner Bros. Pictures) from taking actions that violate Fox's copyrights and which stand to forever impair Fox's rights to control the distribution and development of this unique work," this according to the complaint.
Fox’s claim – it still has a hold of a piece of the Watchmen movie franchise, and hasn’t been paid.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
Fox claims that between 1986 and 1990, it acquired all movie rights to the 12-issue DC Comics series and screenplays by Charles McKeown and Sam Hamm. In 1991, Fox assigned some rights via a quitclaim to Largo International with the understanding that the studio held exclusive rights to distribute the first motion picture based on "Watchmen," according to the lawsuit.
When Largo dismantled, the rights were transferred to producer Lawrence Gordon. Under a "turnaround agreement" between Fox and Gordon, the producer agreed to pay a buy-out price to Fox if he entered into any agreement with another studio or third party to develop or produce "Watchmen," among other things.
Some historical notes about the above: Sam Hamm was brought in to the film project after Alan Moore declined to write the screenplay of the comic series, and Hamm’s screenplay reportedly changed major elements in the original story, including the ending. The project then moved to Warner Bros. and had Terry Gilliam and Joel Silver attached (with an altered screenplay) – this was the “Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dr. Manhattan” phase of the project’s development. Funding problems and Gilliam’s belief (shared by many fans as well as Moore) that the story was unfilmable saw the project die at Warner Bros. the first time, with the rights going back to Gordon.
In 1996, Gordon and Warner Bros. entered into an agreement, which saw the property moved between Universal (with David Hayter writing and directing), Revolution Studios and Paramount (with Darren Aronofsky, and then later Paul Greengrass directing Hayter’s script) before landing at Warner Bros. with Zack Snyder directing from a screenplay by Alex Tse.
As THR reports, Fox now claims that neither Gordon nor Warner Bros. has paid the buyout price or “advised the studio of any other conditions required under the agreement, including procedures necessary to acquire the rights to Watchmen from Fox.”
Fox is seeking unspecified damages in the lawsuit.
Warner Bros. describes the film version of Watchmen as:
A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion – a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers – Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity…but who is watching the watchmen?
The film based on the graphic novel is being directed by Zack Snyder (300) and produced by Lawrence Gordon (Die Hard), Lloyd Levin (United 93) and Deborah Snyder (300), with Herbert W. Gains serving as executive producer.
Playing the film’s core group of “masks,” the masked adventurers at the center of the story, are Malin Akerman (upcoming The Heartbreak Kid) as Laurie Juspeczyk, aka Silk Spectre; Billy Crudup (The Good Shepherd) as Jon Osterman, aka Dr. Manhattan; Matthew Goode (Match Point) as Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias; Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) as Walter Kovacs, aka Rorschach; Jeffrey Dean Morgan (TV’s Grey’s Anatomy) as Edward Blake, aka the Comedian; and Patrick Wilson (Little Children) as Dan Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl.
Watchmen was originally published by DC comics as a 12-comic book series between 1986 and 1987, before subsequently being collected into a trade paperback. It is the only graphic novel to win the prestigious Hugo Award or to be named among Time magazine’s “100 Best English Language Novels from 1923 to the Present.”
Watchmen is currently in production in Vancouver, and is slated to open on March 6th, 2009. The film's website can be found here.