Ok, so yesterday evening all the blogs are abuzz because “Watchmen” producer Lloyd Levin wrote an open-letter regarding the lawsuit, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. and whole messy affair.
It’s a passionate, from-the-heart letter, but it’s also a lot of selective memory, convenient omissions and a lot of bullshit frankly from a Hollywood producer. Naturally, the geeks swallowed this on their knees hook line and sinker. Basically the gist of the letter is that Fox passed on “Watchmen” and Warner Bros. nurtured the project, helped it get off the ground and were “daring” to money into it, so Fox should back down off their claim and essentially let WB release the film scott free.
“From my point of view, the flashpoint of this dispute, came in late spring of 2005. Both Fox and Warner Brothers were offered the chance to make Watchmen. They were submitted the same package, at the same time. It included a cover letter describing the project and its history, budget information, a screenplay, the graphic novel, and it made mention that a top director was involved.”
Warners were tentative, but brave. Fox had no interest.
“The response we got from Fox was a flat “pass.” That’s it. An internal Fox email documents that executives there felt the script was one of the most unintelligible pieces of shit they had read in years. Conversely, Warner Brothers called us after having read the script and said they were interested in the movie – yes, they were unsure of the screenplay, and had many questions, but wanted to set a meeting to discuss the project, which they promptly did. Did anyone at Fox ask to meet on the movie? No. Did anyone at Fox express any interest in the movie? No. Express even the slightest interest in the movie? Or the graphic novel? No.”
And then he turns on the waterworks. This is cry-me-a-river, manipulative bullshit.
“For the sake of the artists involved, for the hundreds of people, executives and filmmakers, actors and crew, who invested their time, their money, and dedicated a good portion of their lives in order to bring this extraordinary project to life, the question of what is right is clear and unambiguous – Fox should stand down with its claim.”
It’s basically a plea to the fans of of course, they’re kind of dimwitted. We were pretty aggravated when we read it honestly, it skipped over all of the legalities and got into this convoluted and subjective idea of what was the “right thing to do,” but when you break the law you break the law. Someone might be fucking with your life and deserve a shot to the face, but if you hit them you’re not getting off. That’s not the way it works, sorry. And Levin’s logic pretty amounts to “well, hey they were asking for it” only in reverse.
But before we could even articulate our frustration, good ol’, pragmatic, and very insightful David Poland broke the whole thing down in plain and simple chapter and verse. He calls the its weak argument total “bullshit” and then proceeds to sharply rip it to shreds. Poland begins:
“Is there anything more pathetic than a movie producer… a producer of expensive movies… suddenly wanting to sit around the campfire, hold hands, and sing Kumbaya, and talk about what’s ‘right?’ “
Poland bitchslaps Levin for thinking the issues lies in 2005, when the turnaround eras in 1991 and 1994 when people should have been paid are the real issues.
” [Levin]: ‘From my point of view, the flashpoint of this dispute, came in late spring of 2005.’ Well that’s lovely. For you. Right now. But 1991 and 1994 do not disappear from the planet when it is convenient for you. That is the reason – the only reason – why Fox is in the position it is in today. It has nothing to do with loving the script, hating the script, burning the script in f-ing effigy. Fox’s lawsuit is 100% about business and making it about the love of filmmaking is what someone who has lost an argument does to try to save face and to embarrass their conqueror.”
Yup. Fuck this guys is good and really articulates what we felt but didn’t even bother to spit out once we read his sage rebuttal.
“All of Levin’s stuff about how daring WB is… puh-leeze n-word! Warners does not have a [Fox head] Tom Rothman rubbing some people the wrong way. But it is a business, first and last. They were “daring” enough to do a second film with Zack Snyder…. When did the daring, gutty production of Watchmen start shooting? Six months after 300 opened. Would WB have moved into production with Zack Snyder had 300 bombed?”
To Levin’s sanctimonious, “for the sake of the poor crew!” (who already did get paid for their work, btw).
“If Fox went away tomorrow, would Lloyd Levin have WB distribute all the money to which Fox is legally entitled to the cast and crew of the film?”
A lot of people are getting into the absurdly flawed logic that Fox sucks so Warners should be able to release the film because Fox would just fuck it up.
“[Stop] falling into the [distracting] game of “they don’t make good movies.” Does anyone make all bad movies or all good movies? Are they crazy when they make the crap or geniuses when they make the good ones? How do smart people get into this thing where you seem to believe there is some moral process going on?”
And that’s exactly right. Getting into the morality of who is deserving of putting out the film is nonsense. It’s a legal matter baby. This could have been solved years ago as Poland says:
“Warners knew the score. They made a bad call. They are getting hit with it now. If they had paid out the $350k or $1 million or whatever, it would have been over that day. Fox would have no rights against the picture had they been paid what their deal said they were owed… not profit… not a percentage of Gordon’s piece… nothing.”
We’re no lawyers, but the NYTimes called this months ago and it really seems that because of producer Lawrence Gordon’s non due-dilligence that Warner is in this pickle and Variety, the L.A. Times and the Hollywood Reporter have all pointed to Gordon as being a central part of this case. He’s got his own rebuttal which we’ll get to in a sec. It’s a little annoying that the already-too receptive geeks are, “yeah, take that fox!” to the righteousness in Levin’s letter yesterday.
C’mon people, we’re a bit smarter than that, aren’t we? As Poland says, “This is not a poet’s corner. This is an industry in which tens and/or hundreds of millions are invested in ideas and the talent that will bring them to fruition and then the marketing artists who will sell them on an unsuspecting public…. But all the geeks will yelp, “Boo Fox! We hate Rothman! Boo hiss! When can we start buying Wolverine tickets online?”
