Details About the 'Watchmen' Settlement Emerge

Sunday

18Jan2009

Details About the 'Watchmen' Settlement Emerge

Sunday, January 18, 2009 at 12:16AM

How much did Fox rake in as part of the Watchmen settlement? A lot less than you might think. In addition to losing out on distribution to Warner Bros., Variety reports that the payout will get an upfront cash payment in the $5 - $10 million range. Really? That's it?

Well...no. But that's the only part of it that's guaranteed. The sum will cover Fox's costs for development of the project as well as legal fees. I still think that's a low figure, hardly worth fighting for in the grand scheme of things when you consider that Fox will get somewhere in the neighborhood of 5% to 8.5% of woldwide grosses for this film and any spinoffs, although I wouldn't bet on spinoffs.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Watchmen makes a billion dollars. If Fox got 10% of that, it would be $100 million, a hell of a payout for simply squabbling. And while the movie will do well, I don't think we're looking at one of the top ten box office draws of all time, and Fox's percentage is apparently not that high.

But if it's as low as 5% of $500 million worldwide, which is much more likely, then all of this was for maybe $35 million. The opening weekend for Paul Blart might be that much. It's still good money, but only a fraction of what the studio wanted.

Look at it another way: When there was another rights issue for Warner Bros. a few years ago, the studio shelled out $17.5 million of Dukes of Hazard money. Does that give this a little more perspective?

Variety goes into great detail about the negotiations, including how both Terminator and Steve Carell were used as bait, but I'm frankly a little surprised that Warner Bros. got off so light. A $10 million settlement is nothing for that studio right now, and the grosses don't ultimately cost the studio anything; it's just money they don't count. When you consider our percentage of half a billion dollars scenario, Warner Bros. would still walk away with $465 million of that.

We'll certainly be tracking the film's box office when Watchmen opens - with no delay - on March 6th.

Colin Boyd |

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