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Watchmen Delayed, Or Worse
whisper_jeff writes "Due to some potential copyright issues, The Watchmen might be delayed, or worse. It seems that Fox claims it still owns copyrights which would prevent Warner Bros from releasing the movie. US District Court Judge Gary Feess decided that Fox had enough of a case that he's willing to hear things out. The geek in me hopes that it will be resolved quickly and the movie will hit theaters on time."
fuck you fox.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
this really isn't a big deal... worst case scenario, they'll just have to throw a lot of money at fox to get 'em off their case.
-- derby
Keep on promoting those arts and sciences, Copyright Law!
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
There is a more detailed account - including a useful chronology - over at Deadline Hollywood Daily if you are so inclined.
Assuming that version of events is correct, then it looks like Fox may still have a legitimate claim on distribution rights for Watchmen. If so, then this lawsuit is probably more likely a way for them to get a cut of the action rather than to stop the whole thing outright.
Why the hell didn't Fox realise this before?
That this isn't just Fox claiming to own the superhero genre or something. I seem to recall them trying to claim the same thing with.. I think the show was Mutant-X, though there their claims seemed to be at least a little more valid.
The damn thing is going to be heart-breakingly bad anyhow from what I've seen & read about it.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Fox will let it out, believe you me. They'll just want a percentage of the royalties.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
They behave like that guy who says "if she won't love me, then she won't love anyone" when it comes to their copyrights. They won't even license them to someone who thinks they can do a better job, such as was the case with Firefly. Now they are threatening to do the same to this movie.
like there weren't a million reasons before.
Studios partner up all the time for releases. Warner isn't just going to shelve a big-budget movie. Worst case scenario, they'll just cut a revenue sharing deal with Fox.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Who wants to see a movie about a bunch of Swiss artisans in their underwear?
>Fox claims it still owns copyrights.
Which would not be a problem in a world with a GNU viewpoint. You know, that whole GPL thing behind Linux.
>Warner Bros from releasing the movie.
Now if one accepts that the only vote one has is with their money - what message are you sending to Warner Brothers when you spend your money on their products?
>The geek in me hopes that it will be resolved quickly and the movie will hit theaters on time.
Now - how many of you will choose instead to walk away from WB and the copyright system? Don't buy their stuff, don't consume their stuff.
Maybe they did and just wanted to keep it to themselves after the trailers circulated for a bit.. build the hype before making demands?
Unless Fox learned of this production through said hype, Warner could use this as evidence of Fox's prejudicial delay. It's probably not enough for estoppel by laches, but it might convince the judge to rule less favorably to Fox. But aren't Fox Warner's attorneys anyway?
They did, but if you show your hand early enough, the project is simply scrapped and you don't get any money. You have to wait until the project is all but released (with tons of money already spent) before you come forward with your claims, as that way the choice becomes "Buy us off with some of the money or lose *everything*."
The only item of significance here is that apparently Fox is asking for a large enough amount of money that WB sees fit to argue the point in court instead of just paying and being done with it. It is likely, then, that Fox believes the movie will perform better than WB believes it will perform, as that would be the basis for the amount they demanded versus the amount WB would be willing to pay.
Basically, then, this is just business as usual, and the headlines are simply being used by either side to try to put more pressure on the opposing side. In the end, the movie will certainly be released. If WB wins the case, Fox should have asked for a smaller windfall. If Fox wins the case, WB should've settled for the earlier Fox offer. Someone loses (maybe both do), but we don't have to care.
When you consider that the movie simply CANNOT meet the expectations of the diehard fans, perhaps not releasing it at all would be better? If they release it, fans will bitch loudly for a month and then it will be over. Whereas, if it is stuck in a vault somewhere, fans will have *year* of speculation, online arguments, "leaked" footage, and overall mental masturbation to occupy them.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
for Alan Moore. Somewhere, he's punching the air.
It's almost impossible to have a baseless snobbish opinion of the General Theory of Relativity.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Or worse..." - Not delayed?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Quoth Taco:
The geek in me hopes that it will be resolved quickly and the movie will hit theaters on time.
I have many doubts that the film can live up to the graphic novel. As a friend of mine put it: The detail and attention devoted to even a single panel in the novel just can't be captured in film. I'm not as big a fan as he is, but I tend to agree (even though the statement is a bit hyperbolic). Watchmen is a dark, well captured story, and I can only see the film being very... well, Hollywood. Oh, it'll no doubt be 'dark', but it'll be a safe, well-defined dark. I really hope I'm wrong.
Note that whatever my feelings are, I don't agree with Fox's tactics - if you want to stop it, do it at the start. Don't let them make a film for megabucks, then say "Uhh, we think we might still have a copyright on that or something.". That's just bad form.
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar
Morons.
...Darl McBride claims SCO has copyrights over the script for the movie and is waiting in line to file suit after Fox.
Yeah, because they're likely to sell $120 million in merchandise to a bunch of torrenters.
From comment on Deadline Hollywood Daily above:
4) Waiting - Waiting is a common game in Hollywood. When you see someone doing something you don't like, you usually wait until they are fairly pregnant, because that's where the money is. Had Fox stepped in the second they saw this occur, the movie probably just wouldn't have gotten made by WB, and Fox would be sitting on a property they hadn't developed in decades. BUT... by waiting until WB finished production, now there's money! Now Fox can see some cash because WB is so pregnant that they have to do something to release the movie. It is possible that WB can make an equitable claim of laches (sitting around trying to maximize the damages), but that's in equity, not in law; and that's strictly up to the court.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
if they screw up the release schedule, fox reaps massive ill will from the distributors
if they cancel, fox won't make any money on their claim
what will happen is the lawyers will argue about numbers, fox will get $25 million, and fox will walk away
this happened on the johnny knoxville/ jessica simpson dukes of hazzard movie. the legal wrangling left some producers with a claim on the property with $17 million
someone looks red faced in wb legal, they screwed up
better analysis at aintitcool.com
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Watchmen delayed, or better There, fixed that for ya!
None of this "or worse" crap. We all know it's about the money. Fox won't do anything that doesn't make them money, and for them to make money, they need this movie to be released. With Fox as partners, of course.
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
Regardless of the outcome, it will eventually be released. If Fox has the rights, they'll work out a deal with Warner so that Fox gets nice slice of the pie. A pre-made movie that you own the rights to is about to be released? How do you say easy money?
...probably hoping it does.
I must admit that while I wish to see the film, I do agree with the man that penned it. If he'd have intended it to be a film, he'd have written a film. I'm not convinced it can be done justice in 2 hours and 20 minutes.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
So in this case, a piece of work written by a couple of guys who are still alive, which was released not too long ago, and someone paid a lot of money for the rights to make and distribute a movie version of, you feel that this is a poor example of copyright law? I actually think this is an excellent example of the system working properly. If this was a work from 100 years ago, yeah, you'd have a legitimate beef. But copyright law needs to exist in some way.
Put into another way, it is a company A (in this case Fox) trying to prevent company B (in this case Warner) from releasing a piece of work (in this case a movie), on the ground that company A still has some rights secured for the corresponding IP.
I actually think this is a wonderful example of how the system is broken. If this was a company releasing a movie without paying the authors, yeah, you'd have a legitimate beef.
But in this case, the authors will get paid anyway from company B. Its just an infight between company A and B with company A trying to get a piece of the lucrative cake, even if it's B who put the biggest part of the effort into producing the movie.
Copyright law exist to protect the original author from abuses, so that the result of their hard working and sweating aren't used without proper compensation.
This isn't the case.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Allow Warner Bros to release the movie into theatres on the promise that Warner show a bunch of trailers for Fox movies. I'm pretty sure a similar thing happened regarding Austin Powers, but I could be wrong.
Summation 2
I think it's kinda funny that you're so blinded by your religious anti-copyright zeal that you can't even keep straight who's on which side of the lawsuit. Apparently you're advocating punishing Warner Brothers for being sued by Fox?
Besides that, the GPL completely and utterly depends on existing copyright law... That's the only reason it works. Do you even have the slightest idea of what you're talking about?
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
whenever a movie, especially one that is an adaptation, especially one adapted from a graphic novel, is hyped this much, I find that it usually sucks. This movie has all the signs, so I'll be sure not to see it when it does finally come out.
Stories like this blow me away. I have no idea what the budget on this picture is, can't be arsed to look it up, but Dark Knight was $150 mil before marketing so I would not be surprised if Watchmen is in the same ballpark. That's a shitload of money, people. I know if I had to answer for it, I'd be paying lawyers up one side and down the other to make sure that there were no surprises. "Who's optioned this property in the past? We bought the rights now but are we sure we're free and clear on this, now encumbrances, no crazy surprises?" Funny thing, Ghostbusters the name was free and for the taking when it came to shooting a movie but there was a shitty live-action show with a similar name, Ghost Busters. So when they cut the licensing deal for toys and the cartoon, suddenly there's this other Ghost Busters product coming out with toys, a cartoon, and there was nothing they could do about that. So that's when they changed the name and branding of their product to the Real Ghostbusters.
But back to the original story. WTF? I seriously, seriously doubt that Fox's goal is to stop distribution. No, this is like patent squatting. The squatter does not want the target company to stop selling the product, that means the parent stops making money. No, no, no! The successful parasite does not kill the host! No, the squatter wants the mark to make lots and lots of money because that makes the squatter's take all the bigger. Fox will let this studio do all the work of putting the movie together and then get a juicy cut off the take.
It amazes me how such an elementary mistake could be made with such big dollars at stake. I see similar mistakes on a smaller scale all the time. The most common one is zoning screw-ups. Some poor schlub invests a lot of time and money in putting up a sports bar or some other business and later finds out that the area isn't zoned for it. What the hell? Shouldn't this have come out at some point during the process? Shouldn't his lawyer have seen it, shouldn't it have come up during permitting, applying for an alcohol license, something? And with this guy putting up so much money, you'd think he'd have done his homework. But no, so sorry, business goes buh-bye. Holy shit.
I saw another one of these where a builder didn't do the proper soil testing that was supposed to be done before beginning construction of a sub-division. The long and the short of it was that the lots needed massive preparation to support the weight of a house because a lot of infill was used. Was that prep done? Nope. So the slabs were cracking shortly after construction. WTF? Apparently it's a successful tactic to do fraudulently incompetent work under a corporation, then bankrupt it before the lawsuits are filed. I don't see how people can get away with it but they do.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
How the h... can Fox claim copyright on a movie they didn't make?
Okay, they may have purchased the rights to make a movie, about two decades ago. But that's not a copyright.
And why are those rights valid for so long anyway?
If they don't use the rights for already two decades, it should be expired and let someone else make the movie. Fox had it's chance and didn't use it.
I think a reasonable timeframe for movie making rights (and the like) should not exceed 10 years or so. Then at least someone else gets a chance of doing it. That would be better in general public's interest.
Argh.
I saw the trailer when I went to go see Dark Knight a couple of weeks ago. At first, I wasn't sure what I was looking at, until I saw the pair of CGI-ified Billy Crudups floating around with the little atom symbol on their foreheads.
"Wait a minute. That looks like Dr. Manhattan."
Then the serious special effects started, and I saw The Comedian's smiley face button, and my eyes rolled back into my head and I went into a blissed-out fugue state. So, I dunno, maybe this is for the best, for the sake of my fragile sanity, but damn I wanted to see this movie.
I thought that there was a clause that specified that if you didn't speak up to someone violating your rights ( copyright or patent? ) that you were reasonably aware of, they became 'void' in that instance? i.e. they can't enforce it against them.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? I cannot remember where I heard it from ( though DeviantArt comes to mind )..
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
Alan Moore decided that HE is not important or necessary to the production of any movie based on his works.
You know... When he said repeatedly that he will have nothing with that.
It's not the Watchmen, it's a original prequel to the watchmen writer with no input from the original author.
Wait, what... What?
Did you even see the trailer if nothing else?
Last time I read the Watchmen, the glass palace on Mars was quite late in the book.
And I guess that you think that Dave Gibbons is not an author since he only doodles some pictures here and there?
People like you are the reason we need -1 Stupid moderation option.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The successful parasite does not kill the host!
So would you claim the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is unsuccessful because it gives people AIDS and then kills them?
Sounds quite like Fox tactics to me...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Sounds like someone has been sitting on their rights and not even had the decency to make an "ashcan" just to maintain them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fantastic_Four_(film)
--- This meme is memory intensive
Good Christ, are you kidding me? The best thing that could happen to any comic, ever, is to keep it as far away from the screen as possible. Frank Miller's writing isn't the half of it -- a crappy producer, a crappy director, and the most carefully conceived plot is going to look like warmed-over shit.
Granted, there have been a few wins of late. But I'm not holding my breath on this one. Watchmen is cerebral, with a massive amount of backstory and filler in Rorschach's notebooks. I'm predicting a highly publicized, big-money tragedy ... but I'd love to be wrong.
I should have been clearer. Frank Miller obviously didn't write The Watchmen -- but he's the best example of a reasonably good comic writer whose work becomes shiny crap on screen. Alan Moore doesn't have a great track record here, either -- From Hell and TLoEG don't really inspire confidence.
Besides that, the GPL completely and utterly depends on existing copyright law
Without copyright law, there would be no need for the GNU General Public License because people could lawfully distribute commented disassemblies of proprietary software.
Sounds like a shakedown from Fox. WB will pay them because Watchmen is going to make bank.
Posting Annoymously because its not mine, but definitely a great commentary and an interesting read.
Wow - there's so much I can say regarding all the prior comments - let's see how much I can get through. I have NO knowledge of this matter anything beyond Nikki's posting, but so many comments are making statements which are off kilter, I would like to try:
1) Chain of Title review - A chain of title is a set of documents which starts with the original rights holder and ends with the producer making the movie. A chain of title is required on every project, but when you acquire something directly from the writer, it is usually just the documents you prepare. If, however, something changes hands many times, an analysis of the rights is required. A copyright report is run (for anything in the public record) and the acquisition document will contemplate that they have to give you all the documents that they got (and prepared) as far as their chain of rights is concerned. Then a lawyer is assigned the task of reviewing each document, and tracking the rights as it passes from hand to hand. This is an awful job to do, and the lawyer is essentially the one to blame if they miss anything that might be buried in thousands of pages of documents which may have been poorly drafted to begin with.
2) Quitclaims - whenever any producer or production company gets their hands on a property that they ultimately don't want, they usually pass it onto the next one via a quitclaim. Essentially, a quitclaim is a easy way out. It says, basically, "I am not making an promises as to what I own, but whatever that is, I give it to you". As part of the Chain of Title review, when you see a quitclaim, you need to determine what they had. By using a quitclaim, you can get out of being sued for a failure of a representation of ownership of the rights. By accepting a quitclaim, you take on the risk that you have no one to sue if it turns out you didn't get the rights you needed.
3) Producers/Production Companies - whenever anyone gives up a project, they usually have conditions. Recovery of costs + interest + 5% of the net is standard. Maybe it will also include distribution in some foreign territories and/or clawbacks if the picture changes too much. But when an individual producer gets a property they can't sell, and they transfer it to another producer, they also leave their stink on it ... usually in the form of including in the transfer contract that they are to get a producing credit (and possibly other rights) as well. In a prior job, we actually were pitched a project that had changed hands so many times, it came with mandatory credit to 7 producers who would have had no role in the picture. The company actually passed solely because of this reason (so, for those of you out there who write - be very careful of allowing this kind of stink to attach to your project; and this includes allowing your managers to attach themselves as producers ... no one likes baggage in an acquisition).
4) Waiting - Waiting is a common game in Hollywood. When you see someone doing something you don't like, you usually wait until they are fairly pregnant, because that's where the money is. Had Fox stepped in the second they saw this occur, the movie probably just wouldn't have gotten made by WB, and Fox would be sitting on a property they hadn't developed in decades. BUT ... by waiting until WB finished production, now there's money! Now Fox can see some cash because WB is so pregnant that they have to do something to release the movie. It is possible that WB can make an equitable claim of laches (sitting around trying to maximize the damages), but that's in equity, not in law; and that's strictly up to the court.
5) Development and Business Affairs - Development is by NO MEANS responsible or knowledgeable as to the chain of title. They get a pitch from a producer, they like it, they send a memo to B.A. to investigate the acquisition. It becomes B.A's and Legal's problem, but i
If the Watchmen movie is killed due to copyright reasons I will destroy the universe.
Have a Nice Day,
Dr. Manhattan
I remember the Punisher with Dolph Lundgren coming out (AND NOT UNDER THE MARVEL LICENSE). It was a really good move for the time. Marvel's lawyers pulled the early releases and a re-write to correspond to Marvel's requirements was made. It was officially released the next year. It was crap (as like most movies from Marvel at the time).
My Sig indicates the end of the comment I posted.
(which almost all judges aren't)
he'd throw this out without delay.
It's not as if we haven't seen this many times. A rival studio will come up with any excuse, mostly to try to stick their hand in the pot. Remember the frivolous last-minute lawsuit by MGM against "Goldmember" merely for its title? Especially considering the OBVIOUS parody going on.
Score this down as just one more abuse of the legal system. The proper response from the Judge ought to have been a good belly laugh, followed by "now get the fuck out of my courtroom before I hold you in contempt."
Put into another way, it is a company A trying to prevent company B from releasing a piece of work , on the ground that company A still has some rights secured for the corresponding IP.
Let's replace Fox with Microsoft, Warner with the community, and IP with Linux. No wonder this case seemed so familiar...
...and the T-Shirt Economy is one step closer.
Surely with the pastabowl of copyrights that exists in Hollywood, WB has something they can retaliate with?
I thought that was the whole point of the mutually-assured-destruction scheme we currently have, so that one competitor couldn't threaten another without having a similar dagger held at their own throat.
I think I've just reached a new level of cynicism about this system.
I have not read the article, but I seriously doubt if this is a surprise to any of the lawyers associated with this movie. No doubt, WB knew about this all along and have been in negotiations the entire time with Fox to release the rights.
However, chances are also high that someone at WB told their lawyers to get the rights for cheap. And someone at Fox told their lawyers to make someone pay out the nose for the rights. WB made an opps when the produced the movie w/o having all the rights locked away. Now they are in (total guess) $100-150 million in costs and Fox's lawyers have them over a barrel.
What is the metric for a good show? Just ask yourself "Did Fox (try to) cancel it?"
you're right, worst movie ever!!!!
They're using their grammar skills there.
Why didn't Fox realize it sooner? Well they did buy the rights 20 odd years ago, that most likely means the folks involved in that purchase are no longer involved with Fox, or just plain forgot about some comic book property they bought back when comic book movies were mostly bombing (effects were not up to the job etc). Probably some comic loving clerical lackey at Fox looked at the old contracts and realized - "Hey we have the rights to the Watchmen!"
Why the heck didn't the author remember that he sold the movie rights to Fox in the 80's and no longer had anything he could legally sell to Warner? Warner will settle with Fox and they should go for both civil and criminal (fraud) charges against the author.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Now, who wants to see the dancing monkey?
C'mon: have you ever been part of a huge project? And you made no mistakes in the process?
If you haven't been part of a huge project, then I can understand why you are surprised mistakes get made. But in the world I've seen mistakes happen all the time no matter what the size of the project. In fact, larger projects tend to have more mistakes (though if run well, perhaps fewer as a percentage of total tasks).
This is a big mistake, it sucks for WB, and someone might lose their job. But if there's no surprises in a $150mm project, you haven't looked closely enough.
Cheers.
I'm actually re-reading the book at this time. Partly in preparation to see the movie and have the book sort of fresh in my mind, and partly because I haven't read it in awhile and it is a fine Graphics Novel.
I for one hope they get the situation sorted, and that the movie is as close to the book as all of the interviews and teasers have indicated.
-- Should there be smoke coming out of my CPU?
for the next election:
FOX supports McCain. A vote for McCain is a vote against the Watchmen.
Zoning screw-ups like you mention are not always caused by lack of diligence in verifying that the zoning is correct. The mistake can be deliberately caused by whoever ultimately controls zoning where there is an interest by either them or a third party to buy the now established successful business at a deep discount after which the zoning problem magically "fixes" itself.
You mean like another bad comic based movie being released? That is pretty bad...
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Hot young actors with all the right moves playing characters in the Watchmen film? Come ON people!
I think everybody salivating for this film has seriously missed the point of the story.
Go back and re-read the comics. The WHOLE point of the comics was that the dream of superheros was juvenile and false, a band-aid solution which simply could not address the real problems of general self-destructive tendencies in people, and that it was the realization of this which drove Viedt to enact his 'master plan'. Casting sexy actors to look awesome in spandex is a dead giveaway that this film is the Watchmen antichrist. But of course, the antichrist is supposed to be popular. . .
I hope this film dies in the can.
For what it's worth, I think Alan Moore wasn't casting a wide enough net. In the 80's and 90's, his view of corruption was, while earnest, simple and naive; blaming the threat of nuclear holocaust simply on good humans going astray while they tried to do the right thing. He didn't see the psychopath, or the threat of world-spanning cults, or loonie social darwinists arguing in favor of deliberate population-thinning by massive orders of magnitude. --To name but a few forces in play. Many people in power WANT to destroy the world; it's not a mistake, it's a deliberate goal. Still, for a comic from two decades ago, The Watchmen was well-done even if it was the product of a clever man with the same mentality of a highschool kid suddenly and passionately aware that the rain forests are being cut down.
I'd be curious to see how Moore might have written that same story today, assuming he hasn't stopped absorbing knowledge.
-FL
Without GPL or any copyright their may not be opensource(I think their would but their could not be as well).
How not? As I wrote above, any software without copyright can be lawfully reverse engineered and published as a commented disassembly. There are plenty of kids in college who would be willing to crack software in that way.
--To name but a few forces in play. Many people in power WANT to destroy the world; it's not a mistake, it's a deliberate goal.
Maybe I'm naive but I don't seriously believe that many people in power WANT to destroy the world.
I do believe that many people in power want to elevate there position relative to everyone else and if that means pulling others down rather than climbing to the top then that's what they will do.
Who do you think wants to destroy the world?
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Interesting idea, but the Variety article says: "Fox said it would rather see the film killed instead of collecting a percentage of the box office." Plus issues of prejudicial delay (posted a mere minute before your comment...there's some good analysis up there.)
I don't think there's any cause for alarm. Fox and Warner both know that they'll only get money if the film releases. If Warner was willing to pay $17 million for The Dukes of Hazzard, they will be willing to pay to settle this issue.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
That's right. Fox will simply want their cut (whether Fox really deserves it or not, if Fox can show some legal encumbrance or become a big enough pain, WB will buy them off). WB will argue that Fox has put no money into this production and deserves nothing, so that will be an interesting tug of war. It's possible that a clever exec at WB will offer Fox a cut of licensing royalties in lieu of movie participation. Why? Because the Watchmen isn't a kids property and licensing dollars will be modest. Contrast with Disney-Pixar's Cars which was a mediocre performer (relative to other Pixar movies), but has been a licensing/toy machine with good staying power.
Oh, yeah... Needs a 'FUCKFOX' tag. *sigh*
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Yeah! Why would anyone pay good money for an action figure when they could just download one over bittorrent... Hang on a sec, that doesn't quite work, does it?
See, this is one of those interesting ways in which intellectual property is not the same thing as actual property.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Not just an "interesting idea". That is how the business works. If all FOX wanted was a percentage at the box office, this is *exactly* what Fox would say - that they want it killed. Best way to maximize the settlement terms. SOP.
If copyright suppresses _The Watchmen_ movie, I expect I'll still get to download it via torrent, and watch it on my giant TV.
Sure, not nearly as good as watching it on a truly giant movie screen in NYC, but a lot truer to the story, acted out in real life.
And an excellent lesson in how copyright that's older than the original 14 year limit is not Constitutional, because it violates the "limited times" term that is an actual compromise for commerce. The unlimited copyright is hurting commerce, but enforcing the kind of arbitrary monopoly that Fox loves to death.
--
make install -not war
Maybe I'm naive but I don't seriously believe that many people in power WANT to destroy the world. [...] Who do you think wants to destroy the world?
Just posting like that (saying where your current thinking is and asking questions) suggests strongly that you're anything but naive but simply haven't connected to the relevant information yet.
There are a number in the scientific community who promote the idea of a sudden 90% population reduction. This guy and others like him who are a little less exhibitionist carry a surprising amount of support in the academic and political communities. Where wealth and the fear of losing that wealth go hand in hand.
There are secret societies which are big into such plans. This video touches on a couple of the more outward notions held by some people with influence, (though this video has it's own stupidities built-in, but it seems impossible to do any research without having to scrape off the personal bias of any given researcher. Endless amounts of reductionist comparison need to be done when looking at this stuff.)
There's tons and tons of information out there. Dig in! Looking into the whole Denver Airport thing is fascinating. Weighing in on both sides of that argument lead to some interesting results.
Good luck and don't worry; fear is normal but if you keep your wits about you, the world gets a LOT brighter afterwards, more so than it even seems now. Knowledge protects in ways we can't even imagine.
-FL
Not yet, but perhaps sometime soon.
The "sexy actors in spandex" look like the characters in the comic. Why would you expect them to not look like that? And have you seen the guy who plays Rorschach?
The director would agree with you on the point of deconstructing superheroes. In an Entertainment Weekly, he discussed exactly that, and with the glut of superhero movies over the past ten years, the time is ripe to carry that message to the movies.
Simply put, 20th Century Fox (from their news networks, through TV and movies) has been abusing the very people who they depend on for financial viability. The viewers.
They allowed an egomaniac to take a steaming shit on your beloved franchise. Sorry for the language, but that's basically what happened. And we REWARDED them for doing it!
They killed several of your favorite comedies, science fiction shows and cartoons without just cause. And we REWARDED them for doing it!
They manipulated more than half of Americans into supporting a war and a president who were both, for lack of a better term, REALLY BAD IDEAS, even making the more intelligent and rational conservatives look like illiterate dullards thanks to much of Fox News' audiences. And we REWARDED them for doing it!
Are you all going to just sit around and whine, watching torrented shows (since the **AAs are now using bittorrent data as a means of measuring the popularity of a movie or show, downloads may as well be helping them), only willing to act when they finally get the cops to kick down your door and shoot your dog?
From now on, boycott everything the bastards release, stop giving them your money, give your attention to more important things. Just stop REWARDING them!
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The "sexy actors in spandex" look like the characters in the comic. Why would you expect them to not look like that?
We must be looking at different images. The comics were drawn in a style which made a clear attempt to make even beautiful people look very human, awkward and un-glamorized. I'm simply basing my views based what I've seen. In the comics, the second Silk Specter, for example, was just a confused woman in a dippy miniskirt who didn't look particularly super, which I thought carried Moore's message very well. Compare that to the scary and ultra-hot Batman-ized kung-fu version of her in the promotional clips. Dan in the comics had a middle-aged overweight thing going rather than the dapper and agile leap-to-the-ground with cool-capes ablaze image portrayed in the clips. Rorschach is supposed to look creepy in the film because he's the obvious target for even simple-minded casting, since his character is not meant to be a sympathetic hero.
My one hesitation is that these are promotional clips, so perhaps the producers are trying to hit the sexy angle in order to make money on opening day. Maybe the film will carry a very different message from the one broadcast by the advertising, but I my, um, spider-sense is ringing off the hook on this.
We'll have to wait and see, and I suspect we WILL see. I strongly doubt this film will be held up for long with so much money at stake.
-FL
As to people wanting to destroy the world, I think not. Nobody in any situation of power wants to willingly throw that power away. Ther is piss pooor leadership, irrational decision making and nation states warring themselves into corners. But no one has yet to demonstrate any comic book style universal destruction urges yet. I mean there are some small nutbags who might be interested in that on a small scale. But the people with the power and purse strings like their comfy chairs and influence too much.
Sorry about the spelling, coherence and grammar but it's 3:30am and I'm left of sober.
Pat
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.- Shelley
That was a helpful link. Reading that story, it's clear that lawyers have already bled the studios for millions over the past few decades on this title, before filming even started. Quit-claims and distribution licenses and oh my god my eyes are bleeding...
Take this and Dukes of Hazzard and every other massive copyright clusterf* together, and maybe the studios will decide that chasing after rights to 30-year-old properties is just too much of a pain in the ass. Maybe they'll start making new movies with new stories, rather than just pushing out sequels and remakes and retreads all summer long?
Nah, probably not.
Do you really think people want to destroy the world in Moores Watchmen universe?
No. I guess I didn't make myself clear enough. --I was saying that Moore was saying the exact opposite; you describe his position accurately. What I was saying was that his position was uninformed and that the real situation in the world is vastly more complex and indeed does contain people who are eager to see the world burn.
-FL
..."this is my movie....no its my movie...not its MY movie"..... wonder if this means we get stuck with higher ticet price to absorbe the legal fees from the studio?
Joe Investor
The Illuminati and all such imaginative spinoffs of freemasonry are interesting and amusing, but probably not in control of the world. And even if they were, I doubt radical depopulation would really suit their aims, who would be the slaves?
I'm not dissing your views, but i certainly think while there might be the smallest kernel of truth in some of this stuff, it suffers from the same fate as Zeitgeist the movie. That is, it gets mired in own self dellusion and disregard for facts and proper research method. The day the world sees the Amero in currency is the day I join Lord Xenu.
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.- Shelley
Well, for starters, there are a bunch of "Christians" out there (and I put that label in scare quotes for a reason, because I don't consider them true Christians, even though that's what they call themselves) who believe in a particular interpretation of the Book of Revelation as a literal prophecy of the future. These people want to hasten the coming of the Apocalypse so they can bring about the Second Coming, the Rapture, etc. In order to do so, they will pursue policies to hasten the coming of what they believe is the Apocalypse, by any means necessary. Paradoxically, some of these loonies are big supporters of Israel, but not because they truly love Israel or its people. (I see nothing intrinsically wrong with supporting Israel, it's just that these particular people have an agenda that's bad for the human race as a whole.)
Now, you could dismiss this as a fringe group, except that several preeminent politicians and ministers espouse this belief system. Of course, we have the Rev. John Hagee (who's been involved in a bit of controversy lately), but also political figures like Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich. At least one political figure (Gingrich, I believe, but not 100% certain on that) opined that it was OK for us to essentially destroy the environment because Jesus' return was imminent. It was a pretty famous quote at the time, but I've not been able to find it via Google search.
In the current White House administration, George W. Bush seems to be cut of this particular cloth; Cheney, perhaps less so, though I'm not really certain.
...is Box Powder!
Those silly executives at the Box Network never learn.
Fox doesn't want to shut down the movie. Hiring lawyers to pursue this in court is, from the perspective of an executive, a business decision. It wouldn't be done unless there was a profit to be made.
So, where's the profit? There are two possibilities.
1) Fox is planning on releasing their own "Watchmen" film, and they want theirs to debut first.
This is an unlikely scenario. The Watchmen is not a well-known mainstream franchise and if they had already started production, we'd probably have heard of it. If they haven't started production yet, then the businessmen are probably more interested in scenario 2, since it has a guaranteed return (guaranteeing a return on investment is important in business. Yes, this includes lawyer fees, and everything else).
2) Fox sees that they can get a portion of royalties or a settlement from WB for the licensing rights they're entitled to.
This is the most likely scenario. Fox will show that they own the copyright, WB will be up shit creek without a paddle because they've produced a movie they aren't legally entitled to release, and then WB will settle out-of-court with Fox for 10% of the royalties, or $20 million, or something similar. My prediction is that we'll see the movie eventually, but there is a possibility that it will be delayed due to proceedings (however, WB will have a great incentive to settle before the theatrical release date, Fox probably realizes this). There is also a distinct possibility that the producer will not enjoy as much of the profits as they would have.
But we will still get our movie. Of course, depending on the nature of the settlement, you may want to boycott the box office in order to minimize Fox's profit (they are, after all, peddlers of pedantic mind-rotting boob-tube junk).
To be fair, I don't think Alan Moore ever intended to say "no one wants to see the world burn" in Watchmen. I think his point was more along the lines of "morality in real life is more complicated than it is in most superhero stories".
He was turning comics cliches on their head at every possible opportunity. The criminal mastermind turns out to be an old fart dying of cancer, who doesn't seem like a bad guy, all things considered. The biggest, and most successful villain in the book is ostensibly one of the good guys. The most principled of the heroes, the one most dedicated to the idea of justice, is also an out and out sociopath.
And all of that pales into insignificance against the threat of a global nuclear holocaust, one that's being brought about not by evil men, but by people trying do their jobs, and finding themselves out of their depth. And the one super human on the planet, the one who could conceivably stop a nuclear war from happening... well all of a sudden, he's not interested any more.
It's also worth pointing out that Moore doesn't seem to have had many problems with the notion of evil people in positions of power. Sir James Jaspers is probably the best example - the mad mutant prime minister who was quite happy to destroy the world on a whim. And, from the same storyline, Opal Luna Saturnine, who did destroy an entire universe to try and contain Jaspers' threat. Kid Miracleman probably also merits a mention here - all of them predating Watchmen.
Getting back to Watchmen, it's hard to pin down any single message from a such a complex work, but I think if Moore had one thing to say about people's motivations in the real world, it was that they are complicated. At the time Watchment was written, morality in superhero comics had become almost as stylised as the art illustrating them. Doctor Doom was might have sometimes paused to consider what was best for subjects in Latveria, but in most cases he was iconic Evil, while the heroes might be occasionally tormented, but they were almost always unambiguously Good. The morality in Watchmen was, I think, far more of a reaction against those conventions, than it was an attempt describe the real world.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Fox is obviously run by knuckle-heads who got a "sports scholarship" at their university of choice, and coasted along with a Communications degree for the sake of actually being a student. Why else would they be trying to ruin everything nerds like us like? They won't let Joss Whedon do another Firefly season, because they still own the rights and don't want to use them, and now they claim to own the rights to Watchmen? And they plan to use them just to prevent a movie?
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Every so often this happens with really big things where it seems unbelievable. For example, in 1998, VW paid over $1 billion for Rolls Royce/Bentley, only to find out later that the people selling the company didn't own the Rolls Royce brand, which was then sold separately to BMW. VW had paid a fortune for outmoded manufacturing facilities that produced about 2,000 absurdly expensive cars a year, some outmoded technology, and the lesser known Bentley brand.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Stuff gets leaked on the internet all the time. If Fox ever did end up shutting down the film, how hard would it be for a leaked copy to pop up on the net by the people who made the movie knowing full well that they would never get a penny out of it?
But in all reality I can't see a multi million dollar movie just go to the ol' land fill. The profit potential is too large for it to just fizzle out like that.