20th Century Fox Wins "Watchmen" Case

[J_UNTITLED]

From The New York Times...

"In a surprise ruling, a federal judge in Los Angeles said he intended to grant 20th Century Fox’s claim that it owns a copyright interest in the “Watchmen,” a movie shot by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures and set for release in March.

The decision was disclosed in a five-page written order issued on Wednesday. Gary A. Feess, a judge in the United States District Court for Central California, said he would provide a more detailed order soon.

Fox has been seeking to prevent Warner from releasing the film. The superhero adventure, based on the “Watchmen” graphic novel, is being directed by Zack Snyder (who also directed “300”) and has shaped up as one of most eagerly anticipated releases for next year.

A Warner spokesman, Scott Rowe, declined to comment on the ruling and the studio’s plans.

At an earlier hearing, the judge said he believed that issues in the case could be settled only at a trial, which was scheduled for late January. On Wednesday, however, Judge Feess said he had reconsidered and concluded that Fox should prevail on crucial issues.

“Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the ‘Watchmen’ motion picture,” the ruling said.

Fox acquired rights to the “Watchmen” graphic novel in the late 1980s for the producer Lawrence Gordon, but eventually dropped its own plan to make a movie from its story, about the underside of life for superbeings.

Mr. Gordon later pursued the project with Universal Pictures, and then with Paramount Pictures, before shooting it with Warner and Legendary under an arrangement that allows Paramount to distribute the film abroad.

In ruling on Wednesday, Judge Feess advised both Fox and Warner to look toward a settlement or an appeal.

“The parties may wish to turn their efforts from preparing for trial to negotiating a resolution of this dispute or positioning the case for review,” he said."

[BStecke]

Hopefully this will come out on time. With any luck, we'll get a Fox BD instead of Warner

[lgans316]

Good news as we are guaranteed to get better video treatment and 24-bit DTS-HD MA instead of DD AC3 or 16-bit TrueHD. I hope this happens to all Blunder Brother movies

Imagine, TDK being given 24-bit DTS-HD MA and high bit rate AVC encode.

[Blu-Jawa]

If Fox owns the film I just hope they do not "Put it Away so NO ONE can See it" that was what They (Fox Films) said they wanted to do with it this passed summer I heard.

[Kaiju]

As long as they don't tamper with the rating, the length or cut anything, I'm fine with this. Fox still sucks ass though, they screw up everything.

[X400]

ohh so there is another thread, weird i typed in watchmen and it didnt come up



since there's so much hate for FOX i hope they just don't release the movie at all, just to say a big "**** you" to the haters

[Heart_Collector]

Originally Posted by X400

ohh so there is another thread, weird i typed in watchmen and it didnt come up



since there's so much hate for FOX i hope they just don't release the movie at all, just to say a big "**** you" to the haters

Alot of people hated Fox when they said they wanted to kill this movie.

[Eagle_23]

They better still release this!!! I want my Extended Cut BD version I don't care who distributes it. Though Fox clearly produces much more superior BD. So anyways here's hoping.

[Rob71]

Oh well. I guess Warner will just use some of the $550M payoff to placate Fox. Or is it $1B now. I have to admit, I haven't been keeping up with the blogs as much lately.

[Penitus]

Great Casar's ghost, this better not screw up the release.

[Clark Kent]

My guess is that distributorship rights will be split among several different regions, with Fox getting some sort of cut in the U.S. I would still expect Warner to retain at least the actual process of releasing this movie in Region A. We are getting too close to release date to change anything significant and I imagine Fox understands that without it hurting the potential box office.

This decision makes it very possible though that we see Fox get to release their own version of Watchmen on BD somewhere in the world (high bitrate AVC on a BD-50 with DTS-HD MA).

[Beast]

Good for 20th Century Fox. Warner Bros. was trying to screw them.

Now if only they could get the rights sorted out for the Batman TV Series.

[Kaiju]

Originally Posted by Beast

Good for 20th Century Fox. Warner Bros. was trying to screw them.

Now if only they could get the rights sorted out for the Batman TV Series.

Fox did nothing about it until after the movie was even finished. They're sneaky, greedy and deceptive bastards, screw Fox.

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by TheMan

Fox did nothing about it until after the movie was even finished. They're sneaky, greedy and deceptive bastards, screw Fox.

Being sneaky, greedy and deceptive bastards is what made American business great. I say we need more of this type of behavior from our companies.

As long as this film gets released.

[Kaiju]

Originally Posted by Rob71

Being sneaky, greedy and deceptive bastards is what made American business great. I say we need more of this type of behavior from our companies.

As long as this film gets released.

Thats all I care about lol. Just as long as Fox doesn't screw with the current cut, and it gets released on time, I'm fine.

[Lepidopterous]

Originally Posted by BStecke

Hopefully this will come out on time. With any luck, we'll get a Fox BD instead of Warner

Haha +1 That's a win-win scenario!

[Marquoz]

Originally Posted by TheMan

Fox did nothing about it until after the movie was even finished. They're sneaky, greedy and deceptive bastards, screw Fox.

If all they had was distribution rights then there was nothing they could do until Warner tried to release it. They didn't have any rights to stop them from filming/editing/etc.

[Beast]

Originally Posted by Marquoz

If all they had was distribution rights then there was nothing they could do until Warner tried to release it. They didn't have any rights to stop them from filming/editing/etc.

Exactly. And Fox made WB well aware of the contract issues.

WB just didn't want to pony up the cash. Now they'll learn.

[WriteSimply]

If Fox paid half of the movie's costs, including publicity and marketing, in exchange for worldwide rights, they'd make a ton of money.

Too bad it had to go down like this though. If you happen to have teaser posters of Watchmen, these are now collectible items.


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[Jeff Kleist]

I seriously doubt it'll be delayed even a day, no matter what.