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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."
----------------------------------- 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.
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.
"Warner Bros.' production and anticipated release of 'The Watchmen' motion picture violates 20th Century Fox's long-standing motion picture rights in 'The Watchmen' property," Fox said in a statement, though the graphic novel's title is simply "Watchmen."
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117990722.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2563
Nice goin', Fox. You don't even know you're talking about.
i won't hate fox for the sake of both firefox and megan fox
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?
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.
The damn thing is going to be heart-breakingly bad anyhow from what I've seen & read about it.
That is what I had assumed. I didn't figure there was any way Hollywood could possibly turn out a decent version of Watchmen.
But then I read this, and now I'm vaguely hopeful.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
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
It did get me to read the graphic novel though, which I really enjoyed. After reading it I suppose it doesn't matter if I see it in movie format anymore.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
...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...
No wonder Alan Moore gets so annoyed over what's done to his old works...
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
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
If it is the same character, in the same type of scenario, it is still under copyright. I just wish that the law were more lenient or that copyright law wouldn't extend through the better part of a century.
http://www.allen-poole.com/
Some real bullshit in your post here we need corrected.
1) Alan Moore DOESNT DO MOVIES... PERIOD. It would have been 100% impossible for the author to be involved when the author ABSOLUTELY FUCKING REFUSES TO BE REGARDLESS OF QUALITY.
2) From everything seen and printed they are being as faithful as possible to the book down to the color scheme of key scenes which are staying on the pastel range like the comic. They are going so faithful as to keep everything minus black freighter, which WILL BE IN THE DVD which will be clocking in at over 5 hours. The movie cut it to keep from going over 3 hours. The movie is planned to be just shy of 3 hours. Everyone who was involved in the comic minue Moore has been involved in the movie from the start. Its just Moore who has become somewhat a recluse. Dave Gibbons even begged him to reconsidered, telling him he would like what they where doing and Moore would have none of it.
Get your facts straight bub before you start spouting off rumor. They are positively being faithful to the book, and Moore chose not to be involved so that he could "bash it with a clear conscious" his quote, they didnt keep him out. Moore got burned and now takes it out on EVERYTHING regardless of quality.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
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.
Nice goin', Fox. You don't even know you're talking about.
Actually Fox does know what it's talking about. This isn't a trademark dispute (although "Watchmen" and "The Watchmen" are confusingly similar), it's a copyright dispute. Copyright covers expressions, and to the extend that the plot and characters of the movie are similar to the ones in the graphic novel, if Fox owns the rights to make movies of the novel, then WB is SOL.
I'm curious as to why WB's attorneys let this one get by them...
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?
I don't understand how Warner Bros can presumably spend millions of dollars producing a movie without first securing the rights to the work the movie is based on. Do they not have a legal department?
"Do not believe?" These guys kill me. Do you have a legal document with the copyright holder's signature on it saying you are entitled to make a movie based on their character? If you don't, it's probably not a good idea to green-light the project. I guess they're just used to doing as they please and letting their lawyers fight with anyone who gets in their way.
Unbelievable.
I don't care why you're posting AC
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
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.
You can never know for sure who the copyright holder of a work is. Even if you know who created it you can't be sure that they didn't already sell the copyright to someone else.
What if an author was tricked into signing away the copyright (or at least exclusive movie rights) but didn't realise they had done so then later signed another movie deal with a different studio. What if the contract with the first movie studio was somewhat ambiguous as to whether it was exclusive or not?
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
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."
I don't understand how Warner Bros can presumably spend millions of dollars producing a movie without first securing the rights to the work the movie is based on. Do they not have a legal department?
Yes, but it's too busy fighting pirates, YARRR!
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.
Yeah, I guess five years of SCO vs the universe demonstrates that.
Is that what happened here? Did Alan Moore sign away the movie rights to Fox, then turn around and sell them to Warner? Did Warner not do their "due diligence" and have thier lawyers review all relevant documents before entering in to a business relationship with the author? Did they *just* find out that Fox believes they own the rights to the property now, when the movie is already shot?
I agree with you that these issues can sometimes be cloudy - the SCO example again really illustrates this. But I think it is laughable that it got this far without anyone noticing that there may be a question as to whether or not they had the right to make the movie in the first place. Either Fox is lying, Alan Moore withheld information from Warner, or the Warner lawyers didn't do a very thorough job.
I don't care why you're posting AC
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.
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
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.
Do you have a legal document with the copyright holder's signature on it saying you are entitled to make a movie based on their character? If you don't, it's probably not a good idea to green-light the project.
DC Comics is owned by Warner Bros and has been since at least the early '70s. Watchmen was published in the mid '80s, before comic creators truly asserted their muscle and won creator rights, so as far as I know, DC holds the copyright to Watchmen. (I can't imagine Alan Moore owning the copyright because he would never have allowed a movie based on his work to made in the first place.)
Now if somehow the rights got away from DC/Warner Bros and they didn't realize it until they had all but finished a movie, then yeah, that's a major legal gaff and someone's head ought to roll.
Alan Moore and DC had a contract that was good for the time. As soon as Watchmen goes out of print, all the rights revert to him. However, as long as DC is publishing the comic, the rights belong to DC. Obviously, it hasn't ever gone out of print, and likely won't until it falls into the public domain. I read somewhere that DC has the Devil on retainer to help them with their contract writing.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
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?
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.
So I can make and sell soda in a red can and call it "The Coke" and reasonably expect not to get sued into oblivion?
Awesome. Any venture capitalists out there want to help me with this other idea I have? It's to make a search engine called "the google."
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
100% impossible?!? That's an overstatement. For example, if Fox were to kidnap his family, I bet he'd be on board...
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.
the number of directors and studios that this project has passed through since Paul Greengrass then Terry Gilliam tried to helm it, and later Darran Aronofsky (though it might have been Gilliam first I'm not 100%), would make it murky as to who was in there first. One thing is for sure, Fox is just trying it on because they want in on a cash cow like Snyder's film of "300".
FurtherMoore (bad pun, I know) it actually seems like it was the producer that hasn't been paying Fox and not any of the other studios. In which case I imagine it would not so much be the blame lying at the feet of Warner Bros legal Dept but rather with the original producer (Lawrence Gordon is still on imdb.com as the producer and he was the one that originally grabbed Gilliam for the project).
I'm hoping it does get released and comes good with a decent interpretation of the text and it's themes. However I think if it sucks everyone will wish it was left alone. That said Snyder seems to be aiming for something that will please Moore, assuming the studio doesn't cut the shit out of it.
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.- Shelley
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.
Geek Alert: Watchmen Movie in Trouble With Fox Suit
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.
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
Thanks, Drew. I admit I don't really know enough about this subject to comment on it, but this being Slashdot and all, I just decided to go ahead and post my immediate reaction to the story. I appreciate the factual information you and others have provided. I think this illustrates the complexity of copyright law, and the need for all of us (or some of us, at any rate) to be better informed.
I don't care why you're posting AC
You wouldn't get sued over copyright. Just like Fox isn't suing over trademark. See how this works?
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
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).
Here's the deal with Alan Moore's rights to Watchmen: Until Watchmen is allowed to go out of print (for 5 years, IIRC), DC owns the property and Alan Moore doesn't. At the time he entered into his agreement with DC, Moore didn't imagine that DC would keep the product(s) in print indefinitely (cue "Sucker!"). So, the short answer is that Moore didn't sell any movie rights because he's never had them to sell.
"Have fun storming the castle!"
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
So I wouldn't be sued or I wouldn't be sued specifically for copyright?
You would most certainly be sued for trademark. You wouldn't be sued specifically for copyright.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
considering his wife ran away with his girlfriend and he has no kids... i dont think he would mind.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
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?
Yeah I really must apologize to Alan Moore for not getting better informed before I commented on this. From what you and others have written, it sounds like he has and wants nothing to do with any of this. I should have taken the time to learn that before opening my mouth.
Having said that, I still feel that someone really fscked up, especially given that DC Comics is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. They really just should know more about their property.
The comment I quoted above stating that they "don't believe" fox has a claim is just stupid. Why make the friggin movie if you haven't hammered out some kind of agreement, or taken them to court, to establish who controls the rights to the work. These guys never let us forget that it's show business, yet they make seemingly stupid "business" decisions. They tell us they're making art, yet they'll let this work of art get mired in a legal battle. They point their fingers at us and call us "thief," yet they'll play loose with other people's "intellectual property" if it suits them.
I know, I should shut up before I end up having to apologize to Warner Bros. (shudders}
I don't care why you're posting AC
From what I've read, it is a bit of a clusterfuck where someone got the rights from DC Comics in the 80s. That guy got into bed with Fox, transferring some (if not all) of the rights. When that fell through, there was another deal that reverted some (or all) of the rights back to the production company that was formed when he got into business with a couple other guys. Those rights were only transfered if certain obligations were met. Part of the deal is the rights were non-transferable. Now when that company dissolved, he retained right to all of the property he brought to the company, but the company itself didn't settle with Fox before any of that happened so someone had to retain control of that non-transferable deal (or did they?). From there, the guy who got the rights from DC was approached years later by New Line (if I remember correctly). Money exchanged hands and he did (or didn't) fulfill his obligations to Fox before that deal went forward. New Line ended up not making the movie when they got a new head honcho who decided it would be too expensive. The rights that New Line had reverted back to the first guy. Somewhere in there, Warner Brothers purchased DC Comics. The current Warner film made a deal with the infamous guy who owns/ed the rights and made the film.
There, a cut and dried case. I may be a little off on a few of the details, but it's something like that.
*Note: Yes paragraph breaks would have helped that make some sense, but hey, I'm getting into the spirit of the thing.
Fuhgeddaboutit. Trying to figure out Alan Moore's legal relationship to his creations requires a lot of nerd knowledge that none of us should have.
What really amuses me is that had DC gone ahead and let Alan use the Charlton characters (The Question, Blue Beetle, etc.; as was originally intended), there wouldn't have been any question at all of him ever owning Watchmen, any more than there'd be a question of him owning Superman or Batman if he wrote a story about them.