Lloyd Levin, a producer on the much-anticipated and hotly-contested Watchmen, has something to say about the custody battle currently raging between Fox (which had the rights for mumblemumble years and did nothing with them) and Warner Brothers (which supported an awesome movie but should maybe have made a phone call before this to make sure the rights weren’t tied up someplace). Yesterday Levin posted a letter on the entertainment blog Hitfix to elaborate on his position.
Refreshingly, our man Levin is not spouting some party line about how they hope it can be resolved; he is furious about how the movie is suddenly being treated as a hot commodity after twenty years of struggle, and he’s not afraid to call Fox out on their prior disinterest in the property.
There were those who considered the project but who wished it were somehow different: Could it be a buddy movie, or a team-up movie or could it focus on one main character; did it have to be so dark; did so many people have to die; could it be stripped of its flashback structure; could storylines be eliminated; could new storylines be invented; did it have to be so long; could the blue guy put clothes on...
…One reason the movie was made was because Warner Brothers spent the time, effort and money to engage with and develop the project. If Watchmen was at Fox the decision to make the movie would never have been made because there was no interest in moving forward with the project.
...If the project had been sequestered at Fox, if Fox had any say in the matter, Watchmen simply wouldn’t exist today, and there would be no film for Fox to lay claim on. It seems beyond cynical for the studio to claim ownership at this point.
It also seems less than productive to condemn Fox at this point, since I think that Fox is pretty inured to being yelled at for sucking; however, this letter is an honest and revealing response from people who made Watchmen and are still so passionate about it, fifteen years later.
Some good news in this maelstrom of Movie Studio Divorce Court—viral marketing site The New Frontiersman is scheduled to go live soon, with some much-coveted behind-the-scenes information and goodies. For those who can’t wait for some more Watchmen news, some very-vaguely-spoilery new stills are up at TotalFilm. Maybe these holdovers can slake our thirst for a movie whose timely release is looking more and more questionable.
VIEW ALL BY · Friday January 09, 2009 10:35am EST
I'm glad that WB cares deeply for this project, but I have no sympathy whatsoever for a multimillion dollar corporation that easily had the resources to secure their project and failed to do so. It's their fault, and now they're paying the price for it.
That said, I find it unlikely it will affect the release of the movie. But Fox will likely get a nice chunk of change from the distribution.
VIEW ALL BY · Friday January 09, 2009 11:01am EST
In this case, copyright is the reason we may not be able to see Watchmen or that other similar films may not get made.
So in the end, both the audience and our cultural heritage loses.
If Fox was in the habit of supporting great genre content, I'd be more ambivalent, but it's not (see Venzon's Axiom). I think they've lost track of the fact thet they are an entertainment company and that entertainment is culture. Fox should start to create, release and support quality content for a change.
VIEW ALL BY · Friday January 09, 2009 11:12am EST
VIEW ALL BY · Friday January 09, 2009 12:33pm EST
However, the WB's plans to push forward an argument as if this were akin to a custody battle--"Fox is abusive towards this property! They're an unfit studio to raise it!"--is so going to screw them. I totally don't think Fox will prevent the movie from coming out, though; WB might just learn a very costly lesson from this. (But, chances are, probably not.)
VIEW ALL BY · Friday January 09, 2009 12:53pm EST
Copyfight has nothing to do with this legal dispute--there's no question of culture, or derivative works, or even redistribution of copyrighted material. It's just a contract dispute. One studio purchased the film rights to a story (in 1986, actually), then through a series of complicated contracts passed and resold some, but it seems not all, of those rights to another company. It looks like Fox at least has some rights to distribution, even if it passed on production.
Don't worry, this isn't going to affect any other similar films. It's very specific to this one set of rights that (it seems) weren't handled entirely honestly on either side.
@ trinityvixen
That's interesting. It seems to me that both parties have problematic arguments and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that they were both trying to screw each other over these clearly ambiguous early '90s deals.
VIEW ALL BY · Friday January 09, 2009 02:10pm EST · amended on Friday January 09, 2009 02:11pm EST
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=18162
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Batman-Watchmen-Batman-Deal-Reported/10573
VIEW ALL BY · Friday January 09, 2009 08:54pm EST
Fostering creativity would mean not trying to wring every penny out of everything whether or not you really contributed to it. FWIW, I'm sure Warner is guilty of the same thing elsewhere, it's just that in this case, I believe Fox to be morally in the wrong -- legally it is another matter, but I have long ago come to the conclusion that the law doesn't have much to do with morality.
And I think it is naive to think this won't impact other productions in some way -- even if it only means making it harder to sell an idea if they know you've talked to another studio by giving you another hoop to jump through, it will have an impact.
VIEW ALL BY · Friday January 09, 2009 11:33pm EST
I see what you're saying. Fox are greedy bastards, I'm with you there. They may not deserve the rights but they may own them anyway.
That said, I don't see how this would affect other projects, or reflect negatively on genre films specifically. I'm pretty sure that Fox just bought the rights to Watchmen outright in '86 and then didn't know what to do it with it, letting Watchmen fall into the cultural black hole you're talking about. Nowadays most work is optioned instead of flat-out sold, so that studios have a limited amount of time to fully develop a project and decide if they can greenlight it before the rights revert to the owners and then get resold to someone else.
With time limited options, something one company failed to develop gets a second (or third, or fourth, or fifth...see: development hell) chance to see the cultural light of day.
VIEW ALL BY · Saturday January 10, 2009 08:50am EST
Exactly!
As for affecting other works, I don't mean a huge "we won't make any comic book adaptation" type thing, but I think the legal departments of many media companies will take just a bit longer to OK every project. All the info and time the lawyers currently require to OK a project is caused by the accumulation of all past experience. This is just another one that will add one more task to the process.
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday January 13, 2009 07:49am EST