'Watchmen' Settlement Reached, World a Better Place

Our long national nightmare is over. Warner Bros. and Fox, realizing both sides had more to lose than to gain by delaying the release of the upcoming guaranteed blockbuster, Watchmen, have reached an agreement that is mutually agreeable. It's probably more mutually agreeable to Fox, since all that studio had to do was not make Watchmen itself at any time in the last 20 years. We don't know the specifics of the agreement and we never will. We know the generalities, however: Money. Lots and lots and lots and lots of money. Fox will pick up a ton of cash next Tuesday afternoon. It'll be at a bus stop on LaBrea in a crumpled Jack in the Box bag. After that, Fox will take a percentage of the grosses for Watchmen, though it is believed it will not have an ownership stake in the film, nor will it be a distributor. It's really the only way it could've worked. Fox owned the rights dating back to the Clinton administration, and though a film had never moved forward until 2005, Fox was always supposed to get paid if a movie got made. The studio brought the legalese to the attention of Warner Bros. in 2008, and Warner swiftly denied that the claim was worth the paper it was written on. Oh, how a few days in court can change people. "Warner Bros. acknowledges that Fox acted in good faith in bringing its claims, which were asserted prior to the start of principal photography," read a joint statement released last night. "Fox acknowledges that Warner Bros. acted in good faith defending against those claims." And then came the best news of all: "Warner Bros. and Fox, like all Watchmen fans, look forward with great anticipation to this film's March 6 release in theaters."

Comments

[Orinn]

Happy it settled, but this does feel like like those people who file patents for everything and do nothing with them, then sue when someone takes the time and energy to create it and turn a profit.

[Lengthy Johnson]

The people at Warner Bros. who ignored the notices from Fox before filming made a whopper of a mistake. They should have settled this thing a long time ago.

I know this kind of situation, though. Engaging in futile lawsuits to cover up stupid mistakes is part of the corporate blame game.

In a good organisation, it doesn't happen. There you admit mistakes, settle and move on.

[Asana]

Good to see that Warner has owned up to not addressing Fox's claims like they should've done long ago. Like it or not (and I assume most people don't) Fox was in the right. Whether they ever chose to make a film on Watchmen or not is immaterial. Judge Feess' stance in their favor showed exactly that and Warner had little to no recourse. A deal was cut, public glad handing all about, case closed and that's that. Though, you just know Warner had to be kicking themselves over what could've probably been dealt with and at less cost... had they only done so sooner.

[Lengthy Johnson]

Well, when executives screw up they will often start a lawsuit. Then they can blame the lawyers when it goes pear-shaped.

Seen it at close range.

This one is kinda tricky to cover up, though.